Softie Rainbow Flower

Recently I ran an introductory workshop on Arduino and wearable/softie electronics; I took a lot of inspiration from a previous wearables workshop I had attended at the MAAS. The workshop was to run for only two hours, and I wanted to have participants walk away with a finished project, so it had to be relatively uncomplicated and not too time consuming to build. I ended up making a little rainbow flower using a Gemma, tiny lipo battery, single Neopixel, conductive thread and felt.


I found from previous projects that conductive thread is a bit finicky when you are working with it for the first time, and with little sewing experience (like me!). Lots of neopixels are great, but that requires lots of sewing, so I decided to just use one, so there's only three lines that need to be made (power, ground and one data line). Neopixels are pretty bright, and I've found they can be a bit harsh on the eyes after a while, so I found that covering the Neopixel with a little bit of cotton wool/stuffing helped to scatter the light a bit. I placed white felt in front of the stuffing to hold it in place and the Neopixel still shines through well.

I've posted some step-by-step instructions on how to build the flower, plus the sketch/code below, for those interested:

Softie Rainbow Flower:

Parts:

• 1 x Adafruit Gemma
• 1 x Flora type Neopixel RGB LED
• 1 x Small 100mAh Lion Battery
• Micro USB to USB-A cable
• conductive thread, felt, small piece of stuffing/cotton wool

Code:

You can download the sketch/code to run this project here. (Update 26/10/2016: A slightly modified version of the code to run two neopixels here).

Steps:

1. Download and install the Arduino IDE. Open the Arduino software and you should be able to see a folder in (your home directory)/Documents/ called "Arduino".
2. Download the Adafruit Neopixel library from here. Unzip and copy the whole folder into the "libraries" folder within the "Arduino" folder. Close the Arduino software (if it is still open) and re-open. Click on "tools/board" and change to "Arduino Gemma". Click on "tools/programmer"and change to "USBtinyISP".
3. Download the sketch/code form the link above (this one for one neopixel or this one for two neopixels). Create a new folder called "simple_rainbow" in your "Arduino" folder and copy this file (simple_rainbow.ino) into this folder (if using the two pixel code, name you folder "simple_rainbow_2pixels" to match the file name).
4. Place the Gemma and Neopixel onto a piece of brown felt (or other colour of your choice) as shown in the picture below. The "GND" pad on the Gemma should be on the top left, "D1" pad up and the "Vout" pad on the top right. The Neopixel should have the "-" pad on the left, "+" pad on the right and in next to the arrow that points in towards the white square in the middle of the board at the bottom.
5. Using conductive thread, stitch three lines using three separate pieces of thread between the pads on the Gemma and neopixel as shown in the image: "GND" to "-", "D1" to "arrow" and "Vout" to "+". Make sure the thread is making a nice, tight contact with the pad and use a tight, neat running stitch along the felt. Make sure to snip off any loose bits of thread to avoid any part of the thread touching a different set of pins and potentially short-circuiting the design.
6. Switch the Gemma off by using the very small switch on the front. Using a micro USB cable, plug one end into the Arduino and the other end into your computer/laptop (make sure you have a USB2 port available: Gemma has been known to act-up/flat-out not work with some USB3 ports).
7. In the Arduino software, click on the tick button in the top left corner to compile the code. Switch on the Gemma and while the red led on the front is flashing, you can click on the arrow/upload button to upload the compiled code to the board. You get about 10 seconds to do this: if you miss it, no probs, just turn it off and on again (or press the small circle reset button on the board). If everything is working, you should have to wait a few seconds and your neopixel should start to cycle through a rainbow sequence of colours.
8. You can now switch off the Gemma and unplug the USB cable. Plug in the battery using the black JST connector on the Gemma (make sure the polarity is correct: the plug will only fit in one way, even if it is a little tight and difficult to get in).
9. You can now stitch on any design to the front of the felt using normal thread and felt. I made a little pocket (looks like a flower pot) to hide the Gemma and hold the battery out of view. You can leave the Neopixel uncovered if you like it that way, or place a small dab of cotton wool/stuffing in front of it to give it a more soft appearance (mine is stitched underneath the circle of white felt in the center of the flower). Cut away any of the excess felt that doesn't make up your design and be careful not to chop off any bits of the conductive thread!
10. You can modify the code to display any pattern of colours you like. Try changing the "i" in line 60 of the code (setPixelHue(0, i);) to a number between 0 and 360 to have a single static colour of your choice. Re-compile and re-upload using the USB port (you should be able to leave the battery connected while doing this).