Here’s a short video showing how to make a simple rotating head. It’s a silly little project, but it’s fun and it’s easy. If you’ve got kids interested in this stuff, it’s a great project to do with them. Or use it yourself to learn how to create and use a prototyping box of some kind (cardboard, plastic, metal), mounting and wiring a motor, and so on.
Maybe just be happy that you built a cute little toy — or get more sophisticated with the idea. You could cover the box completely with black and maybe mount and shine a little LED spotlight on the rotating head for a scary Halloween prop! (Similar to the LED spotlight on my swaying spider project. You could even add a motion-sensing switch to have it start when somebody comes near it.
You could expand on this even more and learn how to use an Arduino and a motor controller to make the head spin in both directions, or add a sound card and speaker to add some peculiar sounds!
Click the photos below to get the parts mentioned in the video.