Introduction: Sensory Dress
3 in 1: Chameleon Safety Alarm Dress. Then learn to create a dress inspired by Katniss Everdeen's dress that catches on fire!
How It Works!
Green Button: Color Matching
- Press to start color matching
- Press again to lock in the current color
Red Button: Activates Alarm System
- Press to turn on the alarm system
- Existing color matching continues
- When you get close, the alarm goes off and the lights turn rerd
- Press again to turn off
White Touch Button: Transformation
- Press to activate
- Movement (spin) to activate lights and fire crackling sound
- Lights turn off when there is no movement
- Press to turn lights off
Supplies
Electronics:
- Circuit Playground Bluefruit
- Arduino Nano RP2040
- APDS9960
- Breadboard
- External Speaker
- Stemma QT
- Pin to Pin Wires
- LED Strips
- Alligator Clips
- Battery Pack & AA Batteries
- Portable Charger Battery Pack (USB connection)
- Conductive Thread & Needle
Other Materials:
- Dress/Item of Clothing
- Fanny Pack or a Pouch and Belt
- Regular Thread
- Nail Polish
- Scissors
- Fabric/Ribbon
- Velcro Tape
- Erasable Ink Pen or Fabric Chalk
- 1/8" Acrylic Board & Glue
Step 1: Let's Start With the Circuit Playground Bluefruit
The CPB will be handling the fire animation transformation.
Step 2: Wiring
Once you have your code running, take a photo or write down your wire mapping so that you remember how things were connected because we will be taking apart our wiring to attach the electronics to the dress.
Step 3: Code
Find my code here:
https://github.com/licjn/interactivedress/blob/main/CPBInteractiveDress.py
You can find the GitHub for this project here:
Step 4: Mark Electronics Onto Fabric
The CPB can be sewn onto the dress and conductive thread can replace wires so that is what I chose to do for this project to reduce bulkiness in this wearable. First, I laid out my electronics on the front side of the inner lining of my dress and marked where the electronics and wiring go on the dress with an erasable ink pen, you can use fabric chalk too. I have my LED strip along the bottom of the skirt while the CPB will be higher up on the waist. This is so that the CPB is more secure, does not experience too much movement, and is less likely to bump into things.
Step 5: Attach Electronics to Dress
Before wiring the electronics, I am tacking them down in place. Thread your needle with regular non-conductive thread and attach the CPB to the fabric, looping through the pads that are unused. I sewed the CPB down at four points: TX, and Audio. Loop through each hole a few times to secure the CPB. I connected battery pack adjacent to the CPB using velcro tape since the batter pack is heavier.
Next up is the LED strip. I am attaching my LED strip using velcro tape. I cut 1/2 inch sections and spaced the velcro tape evenly on the strip.
If you don't have velcro tape you can also use a needle and thread to sew the strip down by sewing belt loops around the strip. This method attaches the LED strip but does not ensure that the strip won't slide around when you move the way the velcro does.
Step 6: Connect the Circuit
For the CPB, I am connecting the circuit using conductive thread. Follow this Adafruit guide about conductive thread to learn more about working with conductive thread.
I started sewing from the middle in between the LED lights and the CPB sewing towards the CPB pad. Once you reach the CPB pad, loop around the hole several times tightly so that the thread is touching the pad. I sewed three connections: one connection from the ground pin to the ground wire or the LED strip, one from the VOUT to the red wire, and one from the A1 pin to the signal wire. My LED lights have alligator clips on the ends so I wrapped the thread around and inside the alligator clips a few times.
Start from the middle, sew up towards the CPB, make the connection with the CPB, then sew back down to the LED strip, make the connection with the LED strip, and sew back to the middle where you started. When you reach the end of the thread in the middle again, knot the two ends, seal with nail polish, and clip the ends of the threads. The conductive thread will not stay in a knot so that is what the nail polish is for. Tug on the thread while the nail polish dries to keep the knot tied.
Make sure to trim your thread after tying your knots and be careful to avoid unintended connections to prevent shorts.
I covered my sewing with ribbon on the front and back to prevent the thread from touching each other when the dress moves around. You can use a ribbon or any piece of scrap fabric. Sew down the corners and edges of the ribbon using regular thread to fully cover the thread. If your wearable or fabric won't move around that much and the chances of the thread coming in contact with one another is low, you can skip this.
Lastly, connect your alligator clip to the pin you use for capacitive touch. The other end of the alligator clip should reach the outside of the dress. I am threading it through one of the holes in the lace of the outer layer of the dress so it can act as a button to trigger the code.
Step 7: Part 1 Demo
Step 8: Now the Arduino
The Arduino will be running the color matching and the alarm system.
Step 9: Wiring
In this wiring:
- 1 Arduino Nano RP2040
- 1 RGB/Proximity/Gesture Sensor
- 1 LED Strip
- 2 Arcade Buttons
- 1 Hamburger Speaker
Step 10: Code
Project GitHub: https://github.com/licjn/interactivedress
Code for the Arduino: https://github.com/licjn/interactivedress/blob/main/ARDUINOCode.py
Step 11: Attach LED Strip to Dress
Here, I am using a LED strip with 2" pitches. Again, you want to layout your electronics and mark them before attaching them. I attached the LED strip starting from the middle of the strand and working down either side. I hand sewed around either side of each of the LED pixels with a matching color thread to keep it in place. This might take a while so put on some music or a podcast. Afterward, I am threading the alligator clips and the LED wires through the lace at the top of the dress so that they come out through the front of the dress.
Step 12: Housing the Electronics
The Arduino Nano RP2040 and its breadboard won't attach and sit as discretely inside the dress as the Circuit Playground Bluefruit does. Instead, we will be housing it in a pouch that will go around the waist (a fanny pack). If you want to still be discrete, you can find a pouch that matches the color of your dress and/or wire it to the back. The important thing to note here is that we need the two buttons and the sensor to be accessible on the outside of the dress. To keep the wires from bending and getting moved around in the pouch, I laser cut a box using Maker Case to store the electronics and glued the pieces together. The top of the box has two slits in it to allow wires to come through. The electronics box and the speaker will sit inside the pouch while the two buttons, the ADPS9960, the three wires for the LED strip will stick out of the pouch so that they are accessible.
Step 13: Part 2 Demonstration
Once you have the dress on, you can connect the alligator clips from the Arduino to the LED strips and wear the pouch around your waist.
Step 14: Final Product
Green Button: Color Matching
- Press to start color matching
- Press again to lock in the current color
Red Button: Activates Alarm System
- Press to turn on the alarm system
- Existing color matching continues
- When you get close, the alarm goes off and the lights turn rerd
- Press again to turn off
White Touchpin: Transformation
- Press to activate
- Movement (spin) to activate lights and fire crackling sound
- Lights turn off when there is no movement
- Press to turn lights off
Step 15: BONUS!
Now where might one wear this light up dress? A fun add-on to this light up dress is LASER TAG!
Play laser tag in the dark in your light-up dress with your friends and ditch the boring laser tag vests!
How to Play!
- Press button B on the CPB to turn the game on.
- Try to hit the CPB with a flashlight.
- If you get hit, you lose one of your 3 lives, and a sound plays.
- If you gett hit 3 times, it's game over and the CPB says "game over".
- The game restarts and resets your lives to 0.
- Press button B to end the game.
This will run on the CPB. Here is the same CPB code with the addition of laser tag: https://github.com/licjn/interactivedress/blob/main/CPBLightstLaserTag
