I know I sound like a broken record, but I have to say that my guys at Hive76 really know how to make fun interactive projects. Check out the Bucket Head from my buddy, PJ Santoro. It reminds me of those amazing animated LED displays you see on houses at holiday time. Apparently I’m not the only one that likes animation.
I had a bunch of EL wire sitting around that I wanted to use for something, and I thought animation would look pretty funny.
The parts list isn’t bad for this costume — an Arduino Uno, the SparkFun EL Escudo Dos, 8 strands of EL wire and an Adafruit electret microphone. As for power, the whole thing runs for hours on an Adafruit 10 AH battery pack. Some additional materials like wire, copper tape and hot glue were also used to create the final masterpiece.
Having seen plenty of glowing stick figure costumes on the net, I find this talking version refreshing. PJ definitely got some great compliments on his costume, but he seemed to really enjoy the making the best.
My favorite part was watching the mouth move to sound for the first time. Rather than talking into the mic while I was prototyping, I was using my phone to play some stand-up comedy towards it. I couldn’t help but laugh to the image of Louis CK’s voice being animated with a glowing bucket face.
I really hope that PJ considers keeping this at our makerspace, because it’s a great conversation starter for newbs at open house. Sometimes people don’t have a project in mind, but once they see something they like, they get ideas. EL wire is a fast way to get things glowing and our tutorial on EL Wire Signs is a fun way to invent a symbol or character to light up a party. I’m already getting some ideas — glowing Thanksgiving turkey anyone?
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!
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
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!