Convey Your Movements With Digi-Weirdo #WearableWednesday
What if clothing could do more than just relate your identity and protect you from the elements? Zhen Liu has higher aspirations, clothing that can convey emotions and movement. She is currently pursuing her Master’s degree in Interactive Telecommunications at NYU and decided to take her ideas to fabric, creating a t-shirt–Digi-Weirdo. The shirt uses LEDs and responds to movement, which allows for the possibility of patterns to communicate emotion.
I was exploring how to establish a statement of identity and guiding communication.
Basically through programming the wearer can create a visual language. The shirt uses a FLORA microcontroller, as well as it’s matching accelerometer to analyze body movements and translate them into a pattern for the LEDs.
It’s interesting to see Zhen’s original board for this concept, and you can clearly see how she starts with ideas communicated by clothing for youth, and then extends to something more interactive and personal. I specifically like her choice of the inverted triangle for the base of the LEDs, which adds to the idea of identity. This piece of fabric also provides a strong foundation for the LEDs so they aren’t affected by the stretch of the fabric.
Zhen has definitely had fun exploring communication with her shirt and it seems to be helpful when meeting people–it sparks conversation. This is just one example of her love of data.
When designing data visualization projects, I focus on making data powerful by exploring its deeper meaning and relationship with humanity. I also care about providing good user experience when letting them explore the data. It leads me into the concept of ‘Performing Data’ and ‘Living Data’.
I’m excited for Zhen and I’m looking forward to seeing her future data visualization projects. This shirt is definitely a great use of FLORA, and I can’t help but mention that this is a sound microcontroller for any wearables project. So, if you are involved with a project for your university or you just want to make a super awesome costume, this should be at the top of your parts list. The newest version includes a built in NeoPixel, so you can quickly create tests that result in a blinky colorful LED. That’s what I call a fun night. Get hacking!
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 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
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!