For my warm-up project, I continued a my embroidery project from last semester. The purpose of the project was to map something so I chose to map my life by making a doormat that would light up when the embroidered feet were stepped on, symbolizing that the person who is stepping there has been where I have been.

The project posed a lot of problems. First, my conductive threads crossed, causing a short circuit and starting a small fire. Then, the pressure sensors I had would not work, presumably because the conductive threads did not provide enough energy. I finally made my own pressure sensors from felt and conductive fabric but the coding is not perfect so only one foot lights up and it doesn’t turn off when the sensor isn’t being stepped on.

Overall, I wish the doormat would work as intended but I’m very proud of the work I put in and the use of problem solving skills. It was a very difficult project to troubleshoot so getting it to work at least a little bit is a big success in my mind.