Monthly Archives: November 2013

Week 3

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Lightning Test

1. What did you do?

  • Received my LEDs
  • Received my prefelts and wool dyes
  • Tested my LEDs for brightness
  • Calculated my LED array
  • Ordered my remaining electronics
  • Planned my wiring scheme

2. Problems

  • Nothing major this week *fingers crossed*

3.  Successes

  • I’ve planned how I can successfully power all of my LEDs and have a solid idea of how to wire and assemble everything.

4. Schedule?

  • I’m a little behind, but I think I can still meet some immediate goals

5. Next Week?

  • The goal for the weekend is to finish draping the dress, do some dye tests on my roving and then do the actual dying of the roving.  This will put me in a position to felt next Friday/weekend.
  • The most important task for this next week to complete draping/patterning the dress.
  • If the supplies arrive, I would also like to purchase my wool roving and dye it in preparation for felting.

Week 3 – Update

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  • What did you do this week? 
I was able to find an example code for the pulse sensor which seems to function properly using the arduino uno.  I will need to do some more work to get the 3 LEDs to communicate with the pulse sensor.
I also received the proximity sensor, new fabric and LEDs.
I also discussed with Emelia how to sew in a pocket on the back of the jacket in order to hide the Lilypad.
  • Describe the problems you encountered.
  • I have to scrap the pattern pieces I already cut due to the fire incident….
  • Describe the successes you had.
  • The basic code for the pulse sensor seemed to work properly
  • Are you on schedule?
  • While I originally planned to work on the jacket construction this week, I played around with the sensors instead so I think I am still on schedule.
  • What do you plan to do next week?
  • I plan to cut my new pattern and start assembling the jacket.

Moneo: Day 17

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Week’s Accomplishments:

Tested soldering the copper wire thread to components. Seemed to work really well. Didn’t even burn the fabric too much!

 

 

 

Here is a close up of the wiring and solder connections. The wires are really small!

 

 

 

 

Copper taffeta from LessEMF. Nice stuff and the shipping was faster than I expected.

 

 

 

Close up of the taffeta. The conductivity is good across the surface, so hopefully this will be useful for a variety of tasks.

 

 

 

Both Teensys are plugged into the breadboard with SD-card slots. All we need now is the transmitters and we can get some communication happening.

 

 

 

Screenshot of the VCard loading from SD chip and then the SipHash running on it to generate a 64-bit hash code. Should be strong enough to avoid collision, while being short enough to transmit really fast for identification.

Problems:

No serious problems apart from waiting for parts.

Successes:

Hash code went smoother than expected. Discovered SipHash, a fast hash developed to resist collision attacks on hash tables. Not as safe as something like SHA1, but really fast for a micro-controller to perform (350 us!) and certainly suitable for a small scale prototype. Overall I’m quite pleased with it.

Schedule:

Starting to run behind I think, due to the delay on the RF transmitters. But the shielding fabric is in, so when I get them, I can start testing with that immediately.

Next week:

Hope and pray the transmitters arrive early, so I can figure them out by end of the week. There is a shipping notice, so here’s me hoping.

IM SORRY I MISSED CLASS AND MISSED JURASSIC SPARK

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What did you do this week? [Include image(s)]
This week I stayed home sick and spent the big dollars on some new materials.
I ordered the magnets I am going to try out. They are little half-inch magnetic disks.

Next I ordered fabric:

Describe the problems you encountered

My main problem was missing class.  Another problem is shipping cost and it is too expensive.
Describe the successes you had

This complete post is about the biggest success this week.
Are you on schedule?

no
What do you plan to do next week?

I plan to go to class and be healthy.  I plan to have a nice little sit-down date with my accelerometer and really get personal.

week 3 update

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– finished setting up loom
– ready to weave

Problems:
– lily tiny and avr programmer didn’t end up working out the way I had anticipated.

Successes:
– figured out a new plan with LEDs and sensors to create a motion detecting light up scarf.
– ordering the rest of my supplies tonight

Schedule:

– on time. finish construction of scarf this weekend begin writing code.

week three

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1. what did you do?

Finally decided exactly what I wanted to do.  The lights on the dress will beat to the music or noise around it.  I ordered three 3m long el wire and three 10 foot long strings of led lights. This will allow me to program all six strings of light to respond to different volumes of sound.

I ordered all of my supplies.  It should arrive by next Friday so I can start programing on Friday.

2. problems

the el wire needs to go through an inverter so it was just an extra cost, but that is minor.

3. successes

I finally ordered everything that i need so i can get going on programing

4. Schedule

next week I will begin programing and continue pattering.  I feel behind because i just ordered my supplies but I’m hoping that because I combined this final project with another class I will have plenty of time to devote to this project and can start making better progress.

Week 2

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1. What did you do?

  • Calculated yardage estimate for dress
  • Researched large-scale felting techniques
  • Calculated approximate felt shrinkage
  • Ordered pre-felts
  • Ordered wool dye

2. Problems

  • My LEDs still have not arrived, even though they have been listed as “shipped”.  I’m waiting to hear back from the company on where they are

3.Successes

  • I found a few time and effort saving techniques for felting that I think will aid me on creating my yardage successfully.

4. Schedule?

  • I feel like I’m still alright on my schedule.  I have all of my materials on the way and a good plan on how to proceed.

5. Next Week?

  • The most important task for this next week to complete draping/patterning the dress.
  • If the supplies arrive, I would also like to purchase my wool roving and dye it in preparation for felting.

 

Week 1 Catch-up Post

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Week 1 was spent researching LEDs and testing randomized lighting code.  I think I have a good start on the coding end.  I ordered 400 of the below LED’s:

http://www.ledssuperbright.com/5mm-led-c-6/100-5mm-flat-white-led-20000-mcd-p-193

Next steps – once I have the LED’s I want to check their actual brightness to determine how many LED’s I’ll be stringing per “cloud” so that I can make some determinations on power needs.  I also need to finalize a plan as far as how I’m going to connect all of these LED’s to an Arduino (multiplexing, shift registers, different board type, etc.).

 

Week 2 – Update

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This week:

  • Received the fabric, pulse sensor, and LEDs
  • Made alterations to the jacket made of muslin (from week 1)
  • Cut the pattern for the jacket out of the new fabric
  • Determined the number of LEDs (from string lights) needed for the jacket and how they would be positioned on the jacket
  • Ordered the proximity sensor and new LEDs

Problems:

  • The LEDs I ordered (luckily only $0.50) were too large so I am purchasing smaller ones.
  • I am not sure if the LED string lights will work after cutting them.  (Emelia sent sparkfun’s tech support an e-mail)

Successes:

  • Determined which proximity sensor to order.  Looking at an adafruit tutorial with Kevin, it seems as though the proximity sensor won’t be too difficult to get working, especially since they provided an example code. (woohoo!)
  • With alterations, the jacket seems more shapely.
  • Discussed with Emelia some options for attaching the LED string lights to the jacket using reflective ribbon.

I am on schedule and hope to get most the jacket sown and start attaching the LED string lights by next week. 

Moneo: Day 10

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Parts on Order

  • Soldering Iron + Tip
  • Solder
  • Wireless Modules
  • Pack of extra MicroSD cards

Parts Received

  • 41 gauge copper wire

Work Completed

  • Completed trial circuit with Teensy and MicroSD card reader. Successfully ran code to list files on card. [Image Forthcoming]
  • Spun copper wire into a 5-ply copper thread for connecting components [Image Forthcoming]

Prospects

Still looking good. There has been some delay with a few parts and timing may become tight if I need to order shielding fabrics, but overall I’m happy with the progress. The spun copper wire should solve the potential problem of fuzzy conductive thread shorting out nearby holds on the PCBs. Still need to determine how to wire up the wireless modules.

I’ve decided to use the VCard standard for holding the business cards. Its well supported and small, so it should be fine for storing and transmitting. Next week will see more software development on this end, but it will be difficult to get a good sense of it all until the transmitters arrive.