A modular wearable system that tackles the shortcomings of
tech-integrated clothing through an independently removable
electronic system. In this act of attachment it draws connection to the symbiotic relationship between people and technology, especially in urban environments where we rely on lights in dark spaces

Exploring Bio-mimetic design as both a platform as well as an aesthetic of a future

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Early component blocking concerned the allowance of the two main chambers: that of the Li-po and the electronics. An additional constraint lie in the goal of a low profile housing. The first builds were made with the Arduino Nano Every before switching to the Adafruit Trinket M0 for it’s delightful size and ample pinputs.

The initial vision was to utilize analogue sensors to read off the body’s movements, primarily focusing on a bend sensor down the spine to detect breathing and a piezo vibration sensor pinched between the weight of the battery and the lower snap to act as a “firing pin” to detect footsteps and impacts. The difficulty lie in capturing the necessary sensitivity from the upper back. Tuning became a matter of physical tensioning which turned into precision design wack-a-mole for very little return.

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A ready fall-back was switching to the Arduino BLE 33 devboard in
favor of it’s built in gyroscope and accelerometer. Using IMU(Inertial Measurement Units), triggers would be read off of changes in the orientation of the board itself, essentially reading magnitude and angle of directional tilts. This proved much more responsive and flexible while reducing the perfboards footprint.

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A key intention for the project was for it to act as a modular platform for easily DIY’ed expansion. Adafruit RGB Neopixel strips are low cost and easily replaceable. The system is outputting one shared signal to a defined strip of 10, meaning that any amount of additional strips of 10 can be added to the JST output at the cost of increased battery
consumption.