How to Make a Shooting Star Dress With LED Lights

This dress is easy to make and fun to show to your friends. Turn off the lights for full effect!

You will need:
A dress (Navy or black)
A Lilypad Arduino kit
A computer
Scissors
Ribbon
Clear Rhinestones

Step 1: Find a Dress

Take an old dress from your closet, buy a cheap one at your local donation center, or if you're really crafty, sew it yourself! Try to find one that is either black or a dark navy. It looks neat if it is has flowing fabric, as well.

Step 2: Get the Kit & Download Software

Purchase a Lilypad arduino kit. I found mine online here. Download all appropriate software, following the instructions in the kit. Once you pull up the software, make sure that your board is listed as a Lilypad Arduino w/ ATmega328.

Step 3: Enter the Code

Once you’ve downloaded the software and entered the appropriate settings, hook up your Arduino board via a USB cable. If successful, the board should temporarily light up. Copy and paste the code stream in the Arduino window. Code courtesy of Kurtsmaze in Ghent, Belgium. Make sure the pin numbers in the code match the pin numbers on the LED lights you wish to use. Edit if necessary. Once your code is as you would like it, click the Upload button to upload the code to the Arduino board.

Step 4: Attachment

If you're happy with your code, it's time to pop the LED's out from the arduino board and attach them to the dress. Place them wherever you'd like on the dress, but remember that the conductive thread attached to the positive ion of each light can't touch the thread attached to the negative. If it looks like some of your threads will cross, try moving the placement of your stars. Be sure to also sew in the arduino board itsefl. When everything's been sewn in, use the thread to connect the LEDs to the proper channels in your arduino board (I used 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11.) It doesn't matter which LED goes to which number, because the code is set for random fading.

Step 5: Decorate!

With the LED's in place, you are now free to decorate the dress with rhinestones, ribbon, or anything else you'd like. I used rhinestones as additional stars, and cut my ribbon into shapes that looked like the star's tail. Attach with glue or by hand stitching.