If you have a tree in your front yard and some time to kill before Halloween this Hangman project that would be worth some consideration. Merlin used a Singing Santa board to control the unit however a small microcontroller or a 555 timer and a handful of components should do the trick.

“Wires were soldered to the relay to power the wiper motor that will run the hangman. The wiper motor is powder by a 15V 1 amp power supply. One wire from the power supply goes to the wiper motor, the other goes to the relay. The other wire on the relay will go to the other wire on the wiper motor.”