Accomplishments:
This past week Kevin and I finished modifying the code so that it accurately reacts to slow and fast movement. Our code takes the average magnitude of the x, y and z direction so a reading of around 1 (0.95-1.05) is equivalent to no movement. Slow movement gives values between 1.05-1.3 and 0.95-0.76 so the code had to be modified in order to include values less that 1. Similarly, fast movement gives readings above 1.3 and below 0.76. The original code only took into account values above 1 but now values below one are also taken into account so that the light patterns emitted are accurate with the movement of the wearer. I modified the threshold values while wearing the garment but I am going to continue to play with it and make sure the thresholds are as accurate as possible based on different movements. I sewed in 5 individual multicolor LEDs into the garment and attached them to the microcontroller. These LEDs are only turned on with fast movement. I also finished attaching the purple string of LEDs to the garment. The top piece is pretty much finished except for some aesthetic modifications that I need to make. I ordered more lace trim to finish the garment but it has not arrived yet. I will also be adding more flower and butterfly appliques.

Problems:
The only problem I can think of is that the blue LEDs blind me when I wear it. I turned down the brightness using analogWrite() for no movement but when the blue lights fade in and out they become extremely bright again. I tried to modify the code so that the fading is dimmer but I must have done something wrong. We will figure this out next week.

Plan for next week:
This week we will begin work on the second part of the outfit: a skirt that incorporated fiber optics that blink to the beat of the music. All of my parts finally came in, so this week we will hook up the sound detector and two strings of LEDs to the microcontroller. We will write a code that triggers the LEDs to turn on when a certain threshold of sound is detected. The two strings of LEDs (one purple and one blue) will be programed to detect different thresholds so that they pick up different variation in sound of the music.

I would say we have completed about 60% of the project. We are done with everything I originally wanted to accomplish but since there are two of us we added a second part to the project (beat blinking skirt).

In my original pitch all I wanted to do is make a top that created different light patterns with the motion of the wearer. We accomplished this so now we added a second element to the project, which is the main change since my original pitch.

The major hurdle we have left is programing the microcontroller/sound detector to pick up different thresholds of sound so that the outfit accurately blinks to the beat of the music. I know how I am going to integrate the fiber optics, LEDs, microcontroller and sound detector into the outfit so I don’t see this being a major hurdle.