This project is a fun way to create beats while hitting the dance floor. It’s also a great beginner level project that uses Arduino, bluetooth, and soft conductive fabric switches.
A few months back I came across an easy way to trigger sound files while being able to choose and change the sounds on a whim. I combined this with my love of making musical interfaces to create a fun and easy project to share.
How do they work? There are three soft switches made of conductive fabric on the bottom of each shoe that are connected to an Adafruit Feather Bluefruit 32u4 board. The board is programmed to be recognized as a bluetooth keyboard so whenever a switch is closed it’s read as a keystroke. For example, when a switch closes it’s the same as the “n” key getting hit on the computer’s keyboard. These keystrokes are mapped to sound files using a piece of free software called Soundplant. The shoes wirelessly connect through bluetooth and each time you tap a toe or click a heel a sound file will play from the computer. Connect a bluetooth speaker to the computer to get louder and better sound!
Adafruit Feather 32u4 Bluefruit LE: Feather is the new development board from Adafruit, and like its namesake it is thin, light, and lets you fly! We designed Feather to be a new standard for portable microcontroller cores.
This is the Adafruit Feather 32u4 Bluefruit – our take on an ‘all-in-one’ Arduino-compatible + Bluetooth Low Energy with built in USB and battery charging. Its an Adafruit Feather 32u4 with a BTLE module, ready to rock! Read more.
Adafruit Push-button Power Switch Breakout: The Adafruit Push-button Power Switch is a tidy little design that lets you control a DC power source using an everyday tactile button. The breakout uses a latching analog circuit that is triggered by a push of the button. Press once to turn on, then press again to turn off. The circuit uses a 3A P-FET to connect and disconnect the IN pin to the OUT pin. Works great from 3V to 14VDC and up to 3A (although the FET gets a little toasty at continuous 3A draw) yet has only 0.5uA quiescent current draw. Read more.
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!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Select Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: PyCon AU 2024 Talks, New Raspberry Pi Gear Available 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!