Day 2: Turn Signal Jackets

As I mentioned in the previous post, Ms. Chipps and I started to work with Arduino again. This time, we plan on  incorporating it into a sweater as the Arduino Lilypad is capable of being so. The idea is to make a sweater with turn signals on the back. It'd be useful in having it if you go biking... or if your just want to let the world know which direction you're turning while walking. I'm going to use it to show off to my friends at school of course since I don't go biking nor go out in general....

 Materials (for the beginning half of what we did so far)

• Lilypad Arduino
• 2x Lilypad Button Board
• 2 orders needed so you can have a button for left and right arrows.
• 2x Lilypad LED
• the order comes with 5 pieces.
• this link happens to be pink LEDs, but you can always choose different colors
• you'll need at least 2 orders to have 5 LEDs per turning "arrow"
• Lilypad Coin Cell Battery Holder
• Conductive thread and needle
• Note: make sure needle is large enough to fit conductive thread
• Pins
• enough for as many LEDs you are using
• Sweater of your choice
• For mine, I stole my sister's comfy, blue sweater

A neat work station is the best work station!

Extra
More LEDs so you can have a light to notify the user of when the lights are on or off. Also, more would be good if you want to make bigger turning signals.

 

The website we're following for instructions on our sweaters is from Instructables.

These are photos from the Instructables link of their versions

For my sweater, I chose to use the more angular arrow look (as in the photo on the left) rather than a curved design. Both of the arrows consists of 4 pink LEDs with a red LED for the tip of the arrow. Moreover, the Arduino and battery board was placed on the inside of the jacket underneath the tag. The buttons placed at the sleeves.

LEDs on the sweater

For the time being, safety pins were used to hold the LEDs in place. Later they will be sewn into the sweater.

I put on the sweater several times to make sure the hood wouldn't cover the lights, and also if the lights were in a favorable place or not.

I liked the idea of red tips for the arrows because it'd just add personal flare. 

Mainboard, battery holder, button

The button seem kind of small, but I think it's sufficient for it's purpose. I just put it at the end  of my sleeves where my thumbs can press it.

After pinning the Lilypad Arduino mainboard and battery holder to the desired place, we were able to finish sewing the conductive thread between the positive side of the battery to the positive side of the mainboard.




The sweaters aren't finished yet, but we'll be continuing work on it tomorrow.