Christopher Miles decided he didn’t want the same old birthday, so he gathered his DJ friends together for a whopping “Alice in Outer Space” party. The stand out of the show was the giant light up mushroom and his reactive LED rabbit ears (worn by a friend). Most of Christopher’s friends don’t really understand the kind of creative work he does, so this was a great opportunity to show them what making is all about.
One of the biggest issues Christopher faced creating the ears was the weight of the parts. The LED strips were heavier than expected, so he couldn’t just mount them on traditional costume shop ears, like he planned. Instead, he added aluminum wire for support, which also helped the other issue of keeping the ears secured on an ever-grooving DJ. Once those issues were solved, the magic of an Arduino Uno, a mic and some Processing got everything in party mode.
Christopher likes to dabble and works with electronics, design, web and illustration. Be sure to check out his Tumblr (especially the pumpkin with Minnie Mouse). Making seems to suit him.
Doing things by hand just has a great feeling connected to it. It doesn’t make you tired like staring at a flat computer screen does. Whenever I figure out a good electronics / DIY project to make, I get really excited for the process and to see how it will turn out and put all my attention and effort into it. You never know if it’ll turn out well or how you wanted, but you’ll always learn much from the process, which will make you better at the next thing you decide to create!
If that’s not enough to get you off the couch, then check out our Sound Reactive Drums sporting NeoPixels. It’s another way you can be part of music.
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!