Category: Electronics

Moon Secrets LED Jacket

I had the opportunity to build an LED jacket for Buzz Aldrin to wear in a segment on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Have you been to the moon? Do you know what secrets it holds? I was invited to construct an LED space uniform jacket for Buzz Aldrin to wear in a segment on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. It’s a fairly straightforward NeoPixel and LED sequin project and I thought you might like to learn how to build something similar at home.

Before you begin, you may wish to check out these helpful prerequisites:

Photo with Stephen by Derek Moreno, wardrobe supervisor for The Late Show

To create an illuminated jacket with NeoPixel motif and LED sequin emblem, you will need some sewing supplies and some electronics supplies from Adafruit. I made a parts wishlist and link individually to them here.

Parts & Expendables:

Tools:

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IoT Muscle Sensing ‘Sup Brows with Kate Hartman

We spend a lot of time trying to send messages to each other through talking, texting, emailing, and more. What if you could send a message to your friend by simply raising your eyebrows?

This project is a collaboration with Kate Hartman.

In this wearable electronics project, we’ll learn to make muscles send text messages! This learning guide will show you how to use a MyoWare muscle sensor and a Bluefruit Feather microcontroller to transmit a signal through the phone to Adafruit IO and If This Then That to trigger an SMS. Let’s get started!

For this project you will need:

Before you begin, please review and understand the following prerequisite guides:

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WiFi OLED FeatherWing Brooch

Create an internet connected display brooch and wear your data on your sleeve (or jacket, or backpack…)! This simple Adafruit IO project pulls forecast data from IFTTT and displays it on a FeatherWing OLED display, made wearable with a magnetic pin back. It also toggles to display a favorite quote, or serve as a nametag!

For this project you will need:

Before you begin, please review and understand the following prerequisite guides:

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LED Matrix Snowflake Sweater with Bluetooth Control

Create a tacky sweater controlled by your phone! It’s easy to put together this Bluefruit and NeoPixel matrix circuit to display snowflakes in a sweater, and control the animation and color using the Adafruit Bluefruit LE Connect app for iOS or Android. 

This is an easy project to build but probably not best for a “first project” as there are a lot of concepts being mixed together and the matrix can use quite a lot of power. You can build it with any of our Bluefruit products and the microcontroller of your choice, such as FLORA with its BLE module, or the all-in-one Feather 32u4 Bluefruit LE.

Before you begin, read and understand the following prerequisite guides:

For this project you will need:

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Flora + Fona SMSsenger Bag

Scroll text messages on your bag, jacket, or any other surface, using a Flex NeoPixel Matrix and Flora + Fona! Combining these two powerful boards can create the wearables projects of your dreams! This guide starts by covering the particulars of hooking Fona up to Flora including wiring and code modifications, so you can take most any Fona project and build it with Flora.

Before you begin, make sure to familiarize yourself with the following prerequisite guides:

Supplies

To build this project, you will need the following parts and tools:

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How To Make an Android Smart Home Mirror

Make a mirror that’s also a display! Use any Android device and some two-way mirror plastic to whip up a smart home mirror, using Hannah Mitt’s code on Github! This guide will walk you through my process of installing Hannah’s app on my Nexus 7 tablet and installing it at home. First up be sure to read this page and download the code:

HomeMirror by HannahMitt on Github

The app has modules for date, weather, chore reminders, stock prices, XKCD comic updates, news headlines, and more. I find the temperature display particularly useful for deciding which jacket to grab on the way out the door.

I had never done any Android development before (though I did make my phone unlockable with an NFC ring), so I think it’s safe to call this project beginner-friendly. It took a little tinkering to get it working and then some crafting to assemble the mirror, but was very satisfying at each incremental step.

Besides your Android device and its power supply (and a long USB cable), for this project you will need:

  • two-way mirror plastic (see-through) – I got mine at Canal Plastics but you can also get it online
  • double-stick tape
  • velcro tape
  • black construction paper (or dark file folder)
  • packing tape
  • velcro tape
  • scissors
  • power run to your mirror’s desired location
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