This project filled with furry hats gets its inspiration from spirit animals. Students at Concordia University, Canada teamed up to marry desirable animal traits with wearable tech. They came up with a bunny hat that changes fur color to match its surroundings and a dog hat that wags its tail when pet. A peek at a circuit of one of the hats shows a Lilypad Arduino for the microcontroller, and certainly a color sensor for the bunny hat. However, the dog hat is more of a mystery for the touch; it may use the capacitive sensing library with conductive thread embedded in the fur.

Here’s student Alika Utepova on the project:

The result of several weeks of hard work with Cynthia L. McLaughlin and Lizzo Tredecium. Sensors were not cooperating, sewing was hard, and I almost burned the whole circuit the night before the due date, but in the end it all worked!! Thank you girls for a great semester, this was fun!

I’m so glad that Alika posted the project on Youtube and I think it’s a great example of how electronics can offer an element of surprise. So, if you are a costume lover, take note! We’ve got two learning guides that may help if you have similar spirit animal aspirations. For those interested in adding a color sensor to wearable projects, check out our Chameleon Scarf .

For those of you that are more movement oriented, check out our fun Animatronic Tail. You can make sure everyone knows exactly how you feel during the day. Have fun experimenting with E-textiles and don’t be afraid to adapt these circuits to fit your own creation. Oh yes, and please do send us videos of your work!

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!