This chest contains the beating heart of Davy Jones

The Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise really likes to make figurative elements and metaphors quite literal, as shown in Dead Man’s Chest when the chest in question is shown to contain the actual beating heart of Davy Jones. That’s a fun visual that Grendel Studios turned into a real-life prop.

The chest built by Grendel Studios isn’t an exact replica of what we see in the movie, but it is similar in all of the important ways and would be instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with the film. When you get close to the chest, you’ll hear the steady beating of a heart. If you have the key, you can insert it into the lock and turn it. When you do, bolts all around the lid will disengage and you’re free to open the chest. Do that and you’ll see a realistic heart thumping away.

Grendel Studios 3D-printed the chest and all of the mechanical components, with the exceptions being the welded-steel key and the outer skin of the heart, which was made of molded silicone. Inside the heart is a clever servo-driven mechanism that pushes in and out. An Arduino Nano R4 board controls that servo and the lid bolt servos through a servo driver module. The Arduino also powers a DFRobot DFPlayer Mini MP3 player, connected to a speaker, through which the heartbeat sound effects play. 

Grendel Studios already demonstrated the chest at Open Sauce 2025 and it will also make an appearance at this year’s Maker Faire Rome.

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