JohnPetersen posted this great project on github- a pair of hats the “seek” each other out with directional LEDs. Via Hackaday.
What are Seeker Hats?
Seeker hats are a pair of hats that can tell the wearer the direction of the other hat. This allows the wearers of the hats to find one another.
The hats use an array of LEDs mounted under the brim to indicate the direction of the other hat.
Motivation
For the 2013 Maker Faire I built a blinky light hat for my son to wear. It used a Flora, a LSM303 compass and eight WS2812 LEDs. Rather than making a hat with more LEDs for 2014 I decided to make something useful. Based on our differing interests I thought a pair of hats that would let us separate yet give us the ability to locate each other quickly would be useful.
Parts Used
Each hat contains the following parts:
- Spark Fun Fio v3
- xBee Pro S1
- Adafruit Ultimate GPS
- Adafruit Flora Compass
- Adafruit Flora Neopixels (5x)
- 2500 mAh lipo cell
How it works
Hardware
- GPS receiver on hat determines location.
- xBee is used to exchange location data with the other hat.
- Compass is used to determine the orientation of each hat.
- The Fio computes the azimuth to the other hat and the difference from its heading.
- The Neopixel in the direction of the other hat is illuminated.
Featured Adafruit Products!
FLORA Accelerometer/Compass Sensor – LSM303: Add motion and direction sensing to your wearable FLORA project with this high precision 3-axis Accelerometer+Compass sensor. Inside are two sensors, one is a classic 3-axis accelerometer, which can tell you which direction is down towards the Earth (by measuring gravity) or how fast the board is accelerating in 3D space. The other is a magnetometer that can sense where the strongest magnetic force is coming from, generally used to detect magnetic north. By combining this data you can then orient yourself. Read more.
Flora RGB Smart NeoPixel version 2 – Pack of 4: What’s a wearable project without LEDs? Our favorite part of the Flora platform is these tiny smart pixels. Designed specifically for wearables, these updated Flora NeoPixels have ultra-cool technology: these ultra-bright LEDs have a constant-current driver cooked right into the LED package! The pixels are chainable – so you only need 1 pin/wire to control as many LEDs as you like. They’re easy to sew, and the chainable design means no crossed threads. Read more.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!