iBeat Tee

This was a class project for GEEN 1400 at the University of Colorado-Boulder, Craft Technology Group (www.cs.colorado.edu/~ctg)

The idea behind this idea is to create a new way for a person to express his or her music while on the go. We like to think of this project as the current generation's way of walking around with a boom-box on your shoulder. 

The iBeat Tee is standard t-shirt that has a completely removable front panel (meaning that all the electronics are fully removable for washing of the shirt) that lights up according to the beat of music coming directly from the user's MP3 player much in the same way the equalizer does in your media player on your computer.

The iBeat Tee takes input from a user's MP3 player and measures the magnitude of the peaks and troughs of the selected music. We then have written and program that dictates which and how many lights to illuminate on the shirt based off of the magnitudes measured.

The iBeat Tee is designed in a way such that the user can keep his or her MP3 player in his or her pocket while wearing the Tee and so that the user can be using headphones or speakers while the shirt is still in use.

This specific Tee has a cityscape design to it. Feel free to change the design however you wish, though for the purposes of this Instructable the steps will be designed specifically to give guidance on how to build a Tee with a cityscape design.

NOTE: We strongly suggest you look at/do our VU Meter Instructable as we feel it will make this project much easier. Here is the link:

http://www.instructables.com/id/VU-Meter/

For this project you will need:
-Four (4) 9V power inverters with 9v snap connectors on one end of each
-One (1) black t-shirt
-Two (2) 11x16 inch pieces of black fabric
-One (1) 11x16 inch piece of Heat N' Bond Iron-On Adhesive
-One (1) 8.25x6.5 inch piece of blue fabric
-One (1) 8.25x6.5 inch piece of Heat N' Bond Iron-On Adhesive
-One (1) Size A4 Cut and Shape EL Sheet (phosphorescent blue-green)
-One (1) Size A4 Cut and Shape EL Sheet (Pink off - White on)
-Nine (9) JST 2-Pin Connectors
-Approx 25 feet of solid or threaded wire (one color)
-Approx 25 feet of solid or threaded wire (different color)
-Heat Shrink
-Thin-Width Masking Tape
-Conductive Tape
-Electrical Tape
-Needle and Black and White Thread
-Needle Nose Pliers
-One (1) Relay-Super Glue (or equivalent)
-Razorblade
-Two (2) 3mm Bright White LEDs
-Soldering Iron
-Solder
-One (1) 3.5mm Male to Spade-Tongue Speaker Cable (At least three feet in length)
-22 gauge solid wire
-One (1) EL Escudo
-Breakaway Headers - Straight - Strip of 40
-One (1) ArduinoMega
-Velcro
-Four (4) 9V Batteries

 

Step 1 Cutting the Design for the Cityscape

For this step you will need:
-One (1) 11x16 inch piece of black fabric
-One (1) 8.25x6.5 inch piece of blue fabric
-One (1) 8.25x6.5 inch piece of Heat N' Bond Iron-On Adhesive

NOTE: For this step you will be asked to user a Laser Cutter. If you do not have access to a Laser Cutter or simply do not wish to use one you can always cut the design out by hand. If you do end up using a Laser Cutter, we have attached the design files the Laser Cutter will need to create the cityscape.

Iron the Heat N' Bond, paper side up, to one side of the blue fabric.

Using a Laser Cutter and the supplied designs (attached) cut out the cityscape design from each the blue fabric and the black fabric. MAKE SURE that you cut out the design with the actual building shape from the blue fabric and the design with ONLY the rectangular windows from the black fabric.

Comments

[curious youth]

could i do this project with an image like this ? its great! but this would be more my style :)

[CamoBedding]

Such an amazing shirt.

[swilliamson1]

how do you actually connect
the wires to the tape? and where do you connect them?

[thehand]

Great instructable! We've taken alot of what you have done here and applied i to a foam core sign. BUT...were trying to get that same responsive effect out of the escudo and are hitting some bumps in the road. I noticed in Step 11 you talk about the code, but its not actually posted anywhere that I can see. I'm assuming that its similar to the code in the long_beat.pde from the UV meter project. Is it up anywhere? would you mind putting it up or PMing me with some more info? thanks and keep up the great work!

[brbman2002]

 Awesome tutorial!!! Whats the name of that song?

[dirtyapple64]

"Finally Moving" - Pretty Lights

[9ale7]

love the moon :)

[AlinaZ]

Ah i want one! O.O
lol good idea :)

[Stormrage]

really cool instructable dude :) but... the VU meter is kinda too expensive instead of buying it u can buy far more better tshirt with VU meter but not the real VU meter its kinda programed on loudness and with 2 AA bateries... just if u could find some better alternative than this VU meter would be cool... and btw 4x 9V batteries?!

[Barrettkg]

I really like this project and idea. truly brilliant.
I was wondering if a jacket would make for a more comfortable design (putting the actual EL design on the back) since there would be less stress on the body, plus, the batteries could be stored in a pocket. All I see you might have to do would be to extend the wiring so all of the components were on the front side flaps of the jacket so they did not get crushed when one went to lie back in a chair

[hjfast]

Great documentation for a freshman project. I just overheard one of you talking to Larry Monke about this project. Good work. Nice 'ible.

[ssinn5]

 do we need 7 or 8 JST 2 connectors. You said 7 up the top but reference 8 in the writing. also, i couldnt find the JST 2 connectors on the website.
Thanks

[dmallen]

You need seven (7) JST connectors. I apologize for the typo.

Also here is the direct link to the connectors: http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8670

Thanks for your feedback

[ssinn5]

Cut sixteen (14) pieces of conductive tape? plz fix

[Dsk001]

Well one suggestion for the power and arduino board is a cell phone belt holdster. Its not the best looking thing in the world but it will remove most of the weight from the shirt. The only thing left on the shirt would be the extra fabric, the el sheet and some wiring. Another idea is maybe using a cell phone battery and upconverting to the voltage required. This way you may get more power from less battery.

[kelseymh]

What an impressive project!  This write up is one of the most detailed and complete I've seen, and it's a really cool result. 

Pragmatically, how comfortable is the shird to wear?  The panel doesn't look particularly flexible in the images, and there's a fair number of wire connections and solder-like bumps. 

[cyclingdude723]

as one of the co-creators of this project, I would say that the front panel is alot more flexible then it is made out to be. It is a lot like a laminated piece of paper. So it really is not that bad. The big issue with the project at the moment is the microprocessor used as well as the power. These make the required components quite large and unwieldy to keep tucked in the back. Our next iteration of the design will attempt to remedy these problems.

Zack

[dmallen]

Thanks! The shirt is definitely not the most comfortable thing to wear. It is also not the most aesthetically pleasing in the back because of the Arduino Mega/EL Escudo. The biggest "lump" are the four 9 volt batteries that must be carried. Also, their weight does pull down on the back of the shirt. We are working on a 2nd generation shirt where we will primarily address the power issue (ie find something that supplies enough power for EL sheeting, or find something to replace EL sheeting that does not require as much power) 

As to the flexibility of the front panel it is really unnoticeable unless you bend all the way over. However, for just wearing to walk around the current flexibility capacity makes for it to be comfortable to wear in the front.

Thanks again and please let us know what you think so we can make our next design even better!