Done this week:

The test poncho is sewn, which gives me a sense of size and lets me test for weight.

I’ve tested all the candidate fasteners as parts of simple circuits (lighting a single LED), and they all work fine.  Some of the stronger magnets require a fair effort to separate, which may be something to keep in mind — the garment may need reinforcement wherever they’re sewn in, and the module cases may need to be shaped to allow for enough grip.

Issues:

Still deciding what the textile part should look like.  The current test poncho helps gives a feel for what the final size should be (it’s a bit small), but the pattern and fabric need to be decided.

Considering printing a layer of conductive ink on a fabric middle layer, and having the outer layer’s pattern reflect the printed traces?

A plan for the next week of work:

Make a test case, and test it on the test poncho.

Decide on the final hardware, possibly purchase additional. (a raspberry pi 3? some adafruit trinkets?)

Maybe rig a trinket, or whatever else is on hand, as an I2C slave.

What percentage would you estimated that you have completed for your project?

About 40% to the baseline — a case that sticks to a garment while both do something electronic, but can be removed for charging.

There’s a lot of polish and embellishment possible beyond that 100%, though.

How much has the project changed since your initial pitch?

Pretty much the same, though a bit more fleshed out now.
What major hurdles do you have left?

Biggest hurdle: Gotta make a poncho.

I also need to decide how things not built to use I2C can be rigged to do so.  Worst case is a trinket with it’s own battery, best case is probably a trinket drawing power from the central module.

Then I need to decide what everything does.

The baseline is having a central “heart” module that both can be removed and possibly repositioned.

Then we add other modules.  Some ways these could go:

• Attachment:
  • some could attatch to the fabric with snaps
  • some could be sewn into the fabric
  • some could attach to other modules with magnets
  • some could be built to be removed temporarily
    • (to do this right, it means giving them their own battery that’s used only when disconnected)
• Actuators:
  • lights
  • speakers
  • vibration
  • displays
• Respond to People:
  • motion detection
  • proximity
• Respond to Environment
  • gas sensors
  • proximity
  • temperature
  • light
• As Input Device
  • IMU; temporarily removable “wand”
  • simple button
  • simple slide
  • camera

There may be some interesting semantics to the connections — giving a module that plays sound a connection spot meant for volume, that can take either a slider or a button.  With I2C, though, that would be a decision made in code.  So maybe that’s another hurdle: how and why does all of this fit in with the code?