As the weeks start to dwindle on this semester we have been assigned to come up with something for the IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT.
This project is suppose to stretch our curiosity and challenge us to do something that we never done before while incorporating a Material Inquiry that was introduced to us through out the semester.
I thought a lot about what I could possibly do. At first I thought about going down the 3D printing road, but the more I discussed with others, I gathered that many of my peers were doing something that related to 3D printing. So, since there are limited resources for printing I decided to steer clear of that area and began looking through the books that were laid out on a separate table.
I came across a book about sew-able components and immediately thought back to the paper circuit inquiry we did previously. I remember seeing the conductive thread that was laid out along with the other conductive items such as the copper tape and the circuit paint. I was drawn to the thought of thread being a possible conductive material and looking through the book I saw embroidery being combined with the lily pad and led lights.
In that moment I knew what I wanted to do for my project. I've never picked up the sewing/embroidery skill, so this would allow me to acquire that skill and also allow me to apply what I know about circuits while using a different material.
I wrote up my proposal and presented it to the class, which was approved. The proposal I gave was for me to learn how to embroider an image (that I was going to decide that day) and then incorporate LED sew-able components and lily pad into the composition. This seemed to be simple yet challenging enough to work with so I bought the supplies and began the process.
The image I chose to work with and base my embroidery on was Vincent Van Gogh's, "Starry Night". Why? Well I love all of the movement in this piece and why not just light up the stars of the "Starry Night"? Also when looking up videos and going on the internet to find out the kind of stitching techniques used I thought the way that embroidery flows it could capture the movement in this piece perfectly.
For this I decided to not work with a template and to just free hand the composition. So, without careful planning with how the composition is going to turn out this will add another fun challenge to this project! Also deciding to do this allows a little more freedom to recreate this iconic image how I please with less stress for perfection.
Now with the led lights I've been looking at the website sparkfun.com/lilypad_how_to and taking down notes in order to figure out how to incorporate the electronics.
So far when doing the actual physical circuit I haven't been able to get the lights to light up with using the thread. Although, I did work with a couple of other peers and got the LEDS connected and working the alligator clips.
This is just the start of this project and hopefully in the next week I will be able to work out the kinks and hopefully have the embroidery almost completely finished and the lights will be shining through making this project closer to becoming a little less impossible.
More pictures and updates to come in next weeks blog post!!