
Adventures in Wearable Electronics – Making a Light-up Dress - conesus
http://www.ofbrooklyn.com/2014/01/15/adventures-in-wearable-electronics-light-up-dress/
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jgrahamc
Love it. I'm adding that to my Better Living Through Microcontrollers Tumblr
([http://bltuc.tumblr.com/](http://bltuc.tumblr.com/))

Looking at the code it could probably be a lot shorter if an array was used
for the LEDs rather than the separate a, b, c, d, ... variables and lots of
repeated code.

~~~
conesus
I addressed the repeated nature of the code in the post. Fact is I was under a
2 day deadline, and that included both hardware and software.

I would have loved to abstract the code so I could not only not repeat myself
when addressing multiple strands, but there are a couple routines where the
lights go in one direction then immediately switch to go back where they came
from. That also could have been refactored, but with only two days to do it
all I had to cut corners.

But hey, it shipped!

~~~
hnriot
"but with only two days to do it all I had to cut corners." \- I took one look
at the code and would hazard a guess that getting rid of all the repetition
would have saved you time. It's hard to look at all that repetition and not
want to fix it! The dress is cool though, not so keen on the jacket.

not sure if there's much demographic overlap, but you should check out some of
the rave gear if you enjoy lightshows.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
"I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time." \--
Blaise Pascal

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phren0logy
This is a great reminder that these projects are pretty accessible these days.
The hardware is reasonably priced, and the code can either be written (or
scavenged) pretty easily.

I don't say that to take away from the hard work and exceptional execution of
this project, but rather as a reminder that we should all get off our butts
more often and make something. In the end this is stuff that almost anyone
with enough motivation can tackle (though perhaps not with the same panache).

~~~
NullXorVoid
A few weeks ago I started playing with some AVR (arduino) chips and a box of
electronics parts, and it's been way more fun than I thought it would be.
There's a certain satisfaction of actually building something tangible that is
missing in my professional high-level coding, for example flipping a bit in a
register and watching an led turn on or a motor start turning. It's also fun
to see what I can get out of 8KB of storage and 512 bytes of RAM, something
I'm not used to with the 96GB servers I normally write code for. I've also
learned a ton about digital and analog electronics.

If you have any programming experience (which on this site you more than
likely do), you can get up and running with an Arduino starter kit in like 10
minutes. It has a very active community and there's tons of articles covering
all the basics.

~~~
voltagex_
Where do you go after making a few variations on blink with the starter kit? I
lost interest a year ago after managing to lose parts of the kit, but I was
lucky enough to complete an Arduphone at linux.conf.au [0]. Definitely looking
to get back into this as a hobby!

After doing the workshop, I think I do better with set projects rather than
experimentation.

[0]:
[http://www.arduinominiconf.org/index.php/ArduPhone](http://www.arduinominiconf.org/index.php/ArduPhone)

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lostlogin
Over here in Auckland, New Zealand, there is a sudden drive for cycling
safety. There have been several well publicised cases of cyclists being killed
after cases of poor road design, bad driving, bad cycling etc. I can't help
but think that lit up cyclists would help this. A quick search shows others
are trying stuff, although not in the tight-fitting-top style that most
cyclists here wear. [http://m.instructables.com/id/turn-signal-biking-
jacket/](http://m.instructables.com/id/turn-signal-biking-jacket/) This is a
bit excessive - I think hand signals are enough, and bright lights are to show
where the cyclist is. [http://www.esthete-cycle.com/en/product/veste-esthete-
velo-u...](http://www.esthete-cycle.com/en/product/veste-esthete-velo-urbain-
eclairage-led/) This is a bit of a full on jacket, but appears fairly robust.

~~~
conesus
(Author here) I'm a biker myself and I was thinking about creating something
to that effect. Turn signals and better lights would go a long way towards
making me feel safer without having to take a hand off my handlebars. I
definitely have something brewing.

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blueblob
Were the electronics comfortable for her?

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brittanymorgan
The dress-wearer here. Getting into the dress with all the electronics was a
bit daunting, just because I didn't want to pull any of the wires, but it was
totally comfortable to wear. I was able to sit (which I was worried about) and
dance totally normally. The dress did have extra room in the top, so the
battery pack and flora were able to be installed there. This dress was also
perfect for installing electronics because it had two layers on the bottom, so
I was able to have the LEDs in between in top layer and bottom, so they
weren't touching me.

~~~
lostlogin
Good on you for being ok with the loops being published - without the pics it
would be hard to visualise.

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vellum
Don't wear it to the airport.

[http://tv.boingboing.net/2008/09/19/star-simpson-once-
mi.htm...](http://tv.boingboing.net/2008/09/19/star-simpson-once-mi.html)

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dx4100
Sweet. I made an LED suit with some Arduino stuff. Check out my approach:

[http://robvella.com/2012/09/hello-world/](http://robvella.com/2012/09/hello-
world/)

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gregt590
Looks great! If you haven't already you should post it to the Maker Pro
newsletter at makerpro@makermedia.com.

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ChuckMcM
Fun stuff. The LED strips are particularly amenable to this sort of design. It
makes me wonder when this will go mainstream and "of course that shirt has
lights in it." is the norm rather than the exception.

I'm also interested in more static effects. I like the EL Wire on the suit at
the end, have you experimented with translucent tubing and leds? That gives
variable color "lines" of light. The sweat question is interesting too, its
pretty hard on electronics and folks like Pebble seem to have just gone for
the full hermetically sealed as a solution. Is there a market for a
hermetically sealed and wearable Arduino? If you did your own battery pack I
could see something which was 5" square and may 1/16" thick as the base
system.

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jamesbritt
The options for wearable computing just keep getting better and better. I'm
stoked about a wearable computing hackfest
([http://www.hackphx.com](http://www.hackphx.com)) here in Phoenix this
weekend at the HeatSync Labs hackerspace.

We'll be playing with Seeed Studio's Xadow platform, including a very nice
low-energy Bluetooth attachment.

~~~
lowglow
If you're not in Phoenix, stop by Hackendo::Integrate for the San Francisco
Wearables + Externals Expo and Hackathon
([http://hackendo.techendo.co/](http://hackendo.techendo.co/))

Full Disclosure: I'm the dude throwing it, and I love this stuff.

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ohjeez
I WANT THIS. #fashionablegeek

