Profile on Technical.ly Brooklyn
Adafruit’s wearables director will show you how to light up a room (literally) on Technical.ly by Brady Dale:
(more…)Fort Greene’s Becky Stern is Adafruit’s director of wearable electronics. If you’re not familiar with the company, it makes a bunch of components that make it easier to make gadgets. It’s all about helping its users learn more about making more stuff.
To that end, Stern is an online personality for the company, teaching new projects every week over YouTube and encouraging the DIY spirit.
MIDI Drum Glove
Play your favorite synths by finger drumming! Stitch up four piezos into a glove and use FLORA to transmit signals to your favorite music-making software. Continue reading for the complete tutorial.
Prerequisite guides:
Supplies and tools:
- FLORA main board
- 4x small piezos
- USB microB cable
- 4x 1M ohm resistors
- ribbon wire
- glove
- scrap fabric to match glove
- pencil
- soldering iron and solder
- third hand tool
- heat shrink tubing
- wire strippers, pliers, and flush diagonal cutters
- heat gun
- painter’s tape or masking tape
- sewing needle and thread
- scissors
Sound Reactive Baseball Hat
Add sound-reactive NeoPixels to your baseball cap! 144 pixel/meter density NeoPixel strip as a wraparound VU meter with a small microphone at the side. The FLORA microcontroller takes input from the mic and sends the LEDs flashing according to the volume in the room!
This intermediate level wearables project requires some precision soldering and sewing. I recommend checking out the following guides before you begin:
- Getting Started with FLORA
- Adafruit Guide To Excellent Soldering
- Adafruit NeoPixel Überguide
- my FLORA book
You’ll have installed board support for FLORA in your Arduino software by now.
For this project you’ll need:
- FLORA main board
- USB microB cable
- Electret Microphone Amplifier
- 144-density NeoPixel strip
- 500mAh lipoly battery and charger
- alligator clips
- soldering iron and solder
- wire strippers, pliers, and flush diagonal cutters
- (optional but very helpful) third hand tool
- stranded wire (ribbon cable works great too)
- sewing needle and thread
- scissors
- sewing pins or masking tape
- sturdy tape like gaff or packing
- baseball cap (I recommend getting one size up to save room for the battery)
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The hat displays animations based on the audio volume from the microphone, just like the Ampli-Tie. If you’re looking for a project that reacts to sound but doesn’t require (much) soldering, check it out!
76 eye-blasting pixels adorn the front of the baseball cap design. The small segments of flex strip connected with stranded ribbon cable and the FLORA microcontroller can hang out on the outside or inside of the cap.
The circuit is powered by a 500mAh lipoly battery which is stored in the hat’s band at the back of the head.
GPS Logging Dog Harness
Make a GPS logger to map your dog’s playtime at the park or hike in the woods! This intermediate FLORA microcontroller circuit is a great first GPS project! Use conductive thread to stitch up the sewable GPS and FLORA so there’s no soldering required.
Before you begin, check out these guides:
For this project you’ll need:
- FLORA main board (Gemma/Trinket is not good for this project, so stick with Flora!)
- FLORA sewable GPS
- conductive thread
- sewable coincell battery holder (digikey #BA2032SM-ND) with battery (digikey #P189-ND)
- 3xAAA battery holder and batteries
- scrap of tablecloth vinyl
- sewing needle and thread
- scissors
- sturdy tape like gaff or packing
- clear nail polish
We’re building the circuit on the Ruffwear Single Track dog backpack.
To keep up with what I’m working on, follow me on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and subscribe to my newsletter. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases you make using my affiliate links.
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