The Haunted House(s) on Crowley Place - Two brothers who love building mechanical set-ups and enjoy Halloween are continuing to increase their holiday set-up. →[More:]
They now own two adjacent houses to store and stage their spectacle, have the police block off the street and provide security for the crowd of thousands, and take off the whole month of October to prepare.

NPR covered the brothers in short, and had the best take-away lines:

"Some of the tools and things we develop here, actually at Halloween, get used at work," Jeff Park says. The two brothers are senior scientists for the U.S. Army. [ED: the local story said that the brothers are "electrical engineers who do secure work at both the Pentagon and Fort Belvoir."]

One of their remote-controlled robots on wheels was designed to disarm bombs for the military.

"They didn't want it, so I built it for Halloween," Brian Park explains.

Sadly, there are not many pictures in the first link, and none in the second. Plus, I've had no luck finding any other coverage or pictures of their set-up.