Interactive Jacket for Cyclists is a fun project where we turn an ordinary jacket into a wonderful interactive jacket which can display turn signals on the back. These turn signals (LEDS) can be activated by using hand gestures (waving your hand). Also it features front and back LEDs for increased visibility for the cyclist.

In this Instructable, we will show you how we made it, step by step and how can you replicate it to make your own jacket.

This was part of course project for Physical Computing at Saarland University taught by Prof. Steimle.

Step 1: Stuff Needed

Before we do anything, lets make a list of things we would need to make this jacket.

Images are listed in the order of the list

A Jacket (Obviously. Any jacket would do)
Arduino Uno (or Lilypad)
Two 9V Batteries (or one 9V battery and one Lilypad battery if using lilypad)
Two Accelerometers (if possible, two identical accelerometers are required. However we did not had two identical ones, so we used Sparkfun IMU 9DOF Sensor Stick and Adafruit ADXL335)
Red LEDs for back lights
Yellow LEDs for turn signal lights
White LEDs for front lights
Perfboard
Dozen 1k ohm resistors
9V battery connectors
10k ohm potentiometer
Four 2N2222 transistors
Set of wires, very long ones
Screw headers for connecting the wires to the perfboard
SPDT Maniture Switch (main on/off switch)
A box to contain Arduino and the batteries inside the jacket. We used Arduino Sidekick Basic Kit's green box

You can also buy LED strips instead of individual LEDs.

Tools Needed

Hot glue gun (or sewing kit)
Soldering Iron
Shrink tubes
Sticky notes (for labeling the wires)

Step 2: Design

The layout image shows the placement of the lights in the jacket, as well as the placement of the accelerometers near the cuffs. You can place the main board (Arduino and batteries) anywhere you want, let it be underneath the jacket.

The reason for placing the accelerometers near the cuffs of the jacket is that, it needs to be near the hands in order for it to detect the hand gestures effectively.

There are two turn signals LED groups for left and right turns, which are yellow LEDs. There is a single group of red LEDs for brake/back in red color and single group of white LEDs in white color for increased visibility.

Step 3: Circuit Design and Programming

To make this jacket, we need a circuit. The circuit schematic diagram (added figure) shows how different components are connected. You can make the circuit on a breadboard to test it out first (figure is added). And then solder it to the perfboard which can be used as an Arduino shield (Arduino addon, see the pictures). But the wires to & from the accelerometers should be long enough to reach to jacket's cuffs, since we need to install the accelerometers at the cuff (see previous step).

Programming the Arduino

Once you are done and happy with your the circuit, you need to program the Arduino. The program for the Arduino is given in the files section. The program requires two additional libraries

Install the libraries first into the Arduino. Then download the Interactive_Jacket.zip file and open with Arduino to program it.

Early Testing

You can test the working of the circuit by placing the accelerometers on your cuff (see figure) and try waving it. If the gesture is not detected, try changing the potientiometer to change the sensitivity.

LED circuits

We soldered the LEDs in series and parallel combination so that each LED can get 1.5 volts, along with 220 ohm resistors to limit the current.. We are running the LEDs from 9V batteries. But we would suggest replacing the LEDs with LED strips for simplicity.

Interactive_Jacket.zip
Download

Step 4: Assembling

Attaching the Accelerometers Modules

The assembly of the jacket starts with attaching the accelerometers to the inside of the cuff. The modules can be added using hot glue or sewing. The figure shows the how the modules are attached to the inside of the cuff along with wires. Please label the signals/power wires with sticky tape and write the wire names.

Attaching the LED circuits

The groups of LEDs are made using perfboard and can be attached using hot glue. You can see in the figures how each perfboard with LEDs are attached to the jacket. You have to make a hole for the wires to pass through.

LED wires

The wires (LED ones and accelerometer ones) are routed to the main board (Arduino) and fixed to the jacket using hot glue, you can also sew it if you want to. See the figures.

Main Board

The main board comprises of Arduino, the circuit and the batteries enclosed in a container. We used Sidekick Basic Kit as a container :P

Attaching the Switch and Potentiometer

You can attach the switch (on/off) and potentiometer to the green box. But for that we need to make holes for the wires to pass through. We used soldering iron to make holes into the green box, later we hot glued the switch and potentiometer. See the figures

Basically you are done with the assembly step.

Step 5: Testing It Out!

So you have reached till this step. Everything should be working for now. Your jacket should be complete by now

Try changing the potentiometer to change the threshold value which will make the hand gesture detection more sensitive.

What's more?

Well you can do a lot of improvements to this jacket, such as maybe detect the deacceleration and turn on the back LEDs accordingly, acting as a brake lights. Or perhaps make this out of Lilypad and conductive thread and make it washable.

Good luck!

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