CODING

QBEE
Projects
THE GREAT ELECTRONIC SEWING BEE
>STEP-01
Lights
The fibre optics attach to the individual RGB
LEDs of the Blinkt, allowing colour control
of each cluster. This removes the need to
wire multiple LED lights through the dress.
>STEP-02
Housing
The 3D-printed casing replicates the
hexagonal look of a honeycomb, a theme
which is consistently represented across
the dress and website.
>STEP-03
Wearing
The original dress design fits the
Raspberry Pi and other components
at the back of the wearer, stylishly
incorporating form and function.
The aim of the build is to record
physical interactions between the
wearer and the people with whom
they come into contact in the real
world. A touch to the waist, for
example, would be recorded with
a certain set of points, whereas
a touch to the back would record
another. Alongside this physical
interaction data, a microphone
is used to listen out for any of a
series of keywords that are listed
activates the dress to glow a warm
purple, a touch to the hip turns it
green, and so on.
The dress went through a couple
of redesigns throughout the process
of the build, all documented on
Clodagh’s Instagram account
(magpi.cc/2eJgHuZ), allowing for
improvements to cost, comfort, and
usability factors. The original dress,
though fitting exactly to the design
plan of colour-related sectors,
Showing the dress off as part of her thesis
A wearable connected platform
that introduces what is sold as
a ‘purer’ form of social media
as either positive or negative,
whereupon the relevant point
data can be recorded.
The build incorporates an
Adafruit 12-key capacitive touch
sensor breakout board, Pimoroni
Blinkt, fibre optics, and a Raspberry
Pi, all fitted within a beautiful
hexagonal 3D-printed casing.
Clodagh’s aim was to use the
Blinkt and fibre optics to add
colour to the data recording:
the touch of a hand to the waist
wasn’t very comfortable. This led
Clodagh to create another. Though
the second dress doesn’t offer
exactly the same functionality,
it does look the way she wanted,
and still uses the Blinkt, though
in a slightly different manner.
Touch the new dress in any of
the sectors and the Blinkt runs
through a rainbow sequence until
the touch is concluded: it is enough
to demonstrate the idea of data
recording and capacitive touch.
Above Clodagh experimented with multiple 3D-printed cases,
finding the ideal location for the tech to be housed
raspberrypi.org/magpi January 2017 35