Introduction: Future/Primal

Future/Primal is an exploration of animalistic deimatic behaviours, cloud based interactions, and the future of fashion and its role in building and maintaining relationships.

This prototype consists of a tailored dress, a laser cut and tailored handbag, and inflatable sacs attached to the dress which can be used to ward off threats, or covey an emotional state.

Step 1: 12v Air Compressor and 5v Relay

A 5v relay is able to control high voltage, high amp electronics, using the Arduino. It is often utilised for home automation, but here we are using a 12v 10A li-ion battery to power a high-powered portable air compressor.

Pin 7 is used to transmit High or Low (5v) transmissions to the relay, which in turn switches the compressor On, or Off. A button can also be used in the circuit to manually actuate a High or Low signal.

For the prototype, no sensors were included in the circuit.

Step 2: 12v LED Strip

A quick way to include and control a 12v LED strip is to utilise a motor driver/H-bridge. These components allow you to use existing libraries, and a simple circuit, to achieve complex lighting patterns.

Here, ENA1 on the H-bridge is connected to Pin 11 on the Seeduino (this allows you to 'turn on' the circuit), and IN1 and IN2 on the H-bridge are connected to Pin 10 and 9.

Once this is all connected, assigning a value between 0 (off), and 255 (Highest) to Pin 10, will allow you to control the brightness of the LED strip.

Step 3: Code

This code allows for the Air Compressor, and LED Strip, to alternate between on and off.

#define RELAY1 7
int enA = 11;

int in1 = 10;

int in2 = 9;

void setup() {

pinMode(RELAY1, OUTPUT);

pinMode(enA, OUTPUT);

pinMode(in1, OUTPUT);

pinMode(in2, OUTPUT);

}

void loop() {

digitalWrite(RELAY1, 0);

digitalWrite(in1, HIGH);

delay(2000);

digitalWrite(RELAY1, 1);

digitalWrite(in2, LOW);

}