Burberry Skirt Gets a NeoPixel Makeover #WearableWednesday
Guido Burger has already created a sensing ring with his Pico-Platinchen, a tiny stitchable Arduino compatible microcontroller. Recently he decided to hack a Burberry skirt for MakerFaire Berlin, adding to his growing repertoire of construction techniques.
The goal was to make the electronics easy removable, washable, expandable while reducing dramatically the needed power to run the LEDs.
He started with a CAD design of a frame to hold the NeoPixel strips, which later translated into seam tape strips. It reminds me of a hoop skirt that would have been worn in the old days under a gown. This method definitely makes the electronics easily removable.
Guido’s Pico Platinchen allows for the skirt to react to motion with it’s 9 DOF sensor. Normally he operates this controller with a coin cell battery, but for the skirt he decided to use 2-AAA batteries. For the final skirt version he added a BLE module so mobile phones or beacons could be sensed. It’s a colorful way to keep track of those around you. Guido likes to name his projects SENSable, and you can see he packs a lot of sensing into a small space. I would also add that sensible is the exact word I would use to describe Guido’s design process.
In the finished skirt, the top layer of fabric is a laser-cut repeating circle pattern, which allows light from the NeoPixels to just peek through. Here’s a video of the skirt in action. I’m starting to see more and more laser-cut clothing in mainstream stores, including skirts at Ann Taylor and swimsuits at Target. So, stay alert when you are walking shops as you might just find the perfect potential NeoPixel project. If you are interested in making your own skirt that reacts to motion, you should definitely move on to our Sparkle Skirt guide. It’s fun to glow when you shimmy!
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!