DIY LED Bracelet Teaches Color Mixing #WearableWednesday
This cute felt cuff is another voyage into color by Lara Grant, the woman that brought us the stunning LED color matching brooch that you may have caught on our blog. This time she has decided to make an RGB LED the star in this educational Instructable. The design starts with conductive fabric that has been cut with a CNC machine to create a bird of four parts. If you don’t have a machine, you may be able to get a similar look with sharp fabric shears and a steady hand. Each of the pieces is ironed onto the felt fabric and then connected to the various legs of the LED with conductive thread.
The exciting part about this bracelet comes with the addition of velostat pads, which act like tiny switches. By pressing individual pads you can activate different legs of the RGB LED and affect the color outcomes. The clever bird design allows the color of the eye to change and also acts as a teacher for RGB color values; that’s what I call an awesome STEM success.
If you are interested in making your own color play cuff, check out our woven conductive fabric. Add some double-sided fusible interfacing, and you can easily iron this fabric onto your wearable. Just trim the interfacing a bit smaller than your pattern size so it will stay hidden. Have fun creating your own designs–especially when you want a little sheen. It will be a new fave in your soft circuit toolbox.
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!
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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!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: CircuitPython 2025 Wraps, Focus on Using Python, Open Source and More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
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!