How exciting! Pictured here is a functioning prototype for the motion sensing skirt that I’ve been planning. It uses a Lilypad Arduino, a microcontroller board designed specifically for use in textile electronics. The lilypad board takes readings from an accelerometer (the small board in the upper right of the photo) and translates information about the movement it is sensing into different colors of light from the RGB LEDs at the bottom.
Ok, so I know this doesn’t translate all that well to a still photo. I tried to take a video of it working, but my little point and shoot doesn’t handle the LED very well for videos – they made streaks all over the screen. I’ll see if I can get over to my parents’ house tomorrow and talk my little sister into playing videographer for me, though. In the meantime, I’m off to work more on the final design.
Lookee there! That’s my new workbench, ready to use. A friend who loves woodworking and had all of the necessary tools and know-how came over and built it for us, for which I am extremely grateful. The post in the middle is sunk into the garage floor and filled with concrete to protect the back wall. so we had to design around it… Made for quite a tall workbench, but that’s actually quite nice for the finer detail work I’m generally doing. Continue Reading →
