I’m reblogging from Core77 this interesting wearable project because I’d like to highlight the using of Arduino Lilypad board:

Bio Circuit stems from our concern for ethical design and the creation of media-based interactions that reveal human interdependence with the environment. With each beat of the heart, Bio Circuit connects the wearer with the inner workings of their body.

It was created at Emily Carr University by Industrial Design student Dana Ramler, and MAA student Holly Schmidt and provides a form of bio feedback using data from the wearer’s heart rate to determine what “sounds” they hear through the speaker embedded in the collar of the garment. Here’s the schematic of technology:

Have a look at the video below to see how it works and don’t miss BioCircuit Project page on Dana’s Portfolio:

Ruffletron is a prototype of a wearable musical interface and an experiment in performative interaction.

The project has been developed by a textile designer, Lara Grant, in collaboration with the sound engineer Cullen Miller.

For prototyping purpose, Lara used a LilyPad Arduino, Maxuino, Osculator and Ableton Live.

Project details here.

We are happy to announce the first wearable kit on the Arduino Store . This kit has been made by Plug’n'Wear specifically for us. All fabrics in this kit are produced in Italy, and strongly related to a textile family business. If you want to get deeper into the story of this product have a look at Riccardo Marchesi presentation (still in Italian, soon to be traslated!) at World Wide Rome 2012.

Read over for Kit’s features

This kit features:

1. 1x Circular Stretch Sensor Designed by Hannah Perner-Wilson, this circular knit stretch sensor works perfect when you need to detect tension in many projects.
2. 2x Textile push button to make easy digital inputs in cloth, scarfs o bags.
3. 2x Spools of Conductive thread, ready to be hooked over a sewing machine
4. 2x Soft potentiometer kit will let you import analog data into your wearable project: this kit includes 1 meter of knitted conductive tape and a metal ring. Watch it in action (see video)
5. 10x 1k ohm resistor
6. 10x 10k ohm resistor
7. 1x Textile perfboard is going to change the way you think of wearable circuits. You can sew or even solder components (SMD & through-hole) on this . It can be easily cut or sewn with a standard sewing machine. Washable. Size: 15 cm x 15 cm (6″ x 6″) / Pitch: 2.54 mm (0.1″)
8. 1x Knitted Coated Copper Tape. Small conductive tape made of coated copper fine wire (112 micron). Flexible, easy to cut, sewable with a standard sewing machine, It can be easily welded ( The coating will melt and tape will be soldered). The surface of this tape has a good insulation thrughout its lenght. Resistance: 107 Ohm/m. Width: 9 mm (0.35″)
9. 1x Analog Textile Press Button, working with a resistive principle (resistance goes down when you press it). It works as a bend sensor as well. By connecting more sensors together it is possible to make a matrix analog switch. Sensitive area 40mm x 40mm (1.57″x1.57″)
10. 2x LilyPad LED Bright White A simple, very bright, 250mcd, white LED LilyPad

source: [arduino store]

Ref is a wearable pet made by Jens Dyvik. Its goal is to assist you in improving your emotional skills by mirroring your state of excitement through its behaviour. By sensing your heartbeat, Ref will respond through non-verbal communication. For example, if Ref detects that you are stressed, it will raise its head and tail, otherwise, when you get relaxed  Ref will curl up its tail and lower its head. The system is controlled by six servomotors and an Arduino.

via [Fashioningtech]

Next July a workshop on wearable computing will be held at Supsi Summer School (Ticino).

Goal of the workshop is the design and prototyping, through the Arduino platform, of objects that sense, interpret and react to the real world and that can be wearable and digitally fabricated.

More info here.

Via [openwear.org]

Brian Schiffer and Sima Mitra, from Cornell University, propose a very nice wristwatch that allows you to keep track of your time perception, using a method known as duration production: TicTocTrac.

Human perception of time is typically distorted, due to the different amount of information and experiences acquired everyday. TicTocTrac lets you to estimate your own perception, first by signaling the perceived duration of a given event and, then, by comparing it with the actual event duration. Finally, all the information can easily be saved to a micro SD card.

The hardware is based on a Atmega32u4, a DS3234S real-time clock and several leds to display time, while the software part is mostly based on Arduino’s DS3234S RTC library.

More information can be found here.

[Via: TicTocTrac]

3D image input is often a challenging task when it comes to irregular objects like a human body. Here is where an arduino, tilt sensors and a little math comes to the rescue. University of Toronto’s Responsive Architecture at Daniels school created one such blanket.

The petals are made up of a conductive material, which are linked to larger network of conductive threads all in the shape of a hexagon. The loads of tilt sensors send the data of their position with respect to a central Arduino-powered computer which is then able to calculate the slopes between the various flowers and petals on the blanket. Thereby giving out a 3D input to the computer.

The concept will be widely applicable to interaction design, video game controls and numerous other fields.

Via:[Gizmodo, University of toronto - RAD]

Lucid dream is a state in which you can control what you dream. Be it winning a million bucks worth lottery, or dating your favorite cine star, it is possible to control your dreams using these DIY goggles!

Simple to build and a nice weekend hack for the bored, these goggles are pretty cost effective and impressive. Put together a pair of glasses, LED, Arduino, a battery and some other minor paraphernalia and you are ready to live your favorite dream in your resting time!

Via:[Hackaday, Madscientist]

Fashionable Technology Performance_ Interactive Necklace from Sylvia Yang on Vimeo.

In an age of geekifying, everything electronics entering fashion is not something new. But the subtle difference between doing something classy and over doing is set apart by the talented designer Sylvia Yang.

A designer’s draft of the design + components (we can see a lilypad there!) is shown here:

[Via: www.sylvia-yang.com]

A yet another application of wearable electronics – to train blind athletes with pressure feedback.

A work that is a part of the Innovation Design Engineering (IDE) masters programme run jointly by Imperial College and the Royal College of Art has a team designing it, as part of course. Mining company Rio Tinto has launched a ‘Sports Innovation Challenge’ for new paralympic opportunities, ranging from equipment through to radical new sporting events and competition models.

“As a visually impaired person, you don’t develop the same kind of kinaesthetic awareness — so we began with how you can rebuild body awareness and how you can actually have a feeling of where your limbs are in space, if you lost your sight, for instance,” said IDE student Benedict Copping.

Noting that the vast majority of sighted athletes use coaching demonstrations or video-analysis techniques to perfect complex motion skills, Copping’s team wanted to find a way for blind athletes to similarly benefit.

The design comprises of wearable joint pads that record the position of the limb in space and keep this as a reference against predetermined angles, giving a graded vibration feedback as they match up.

Flex sensors, vibration motors (like those used in mobile phones) and an Arduino mini pro electronics board (for computation) are some of the easily available components that are used.

“If you’re visually impaired, because you can’t reflect on somebody else doing the motion, the coach moves the hand around, so what he’ll do is get the first position and press a button, store that, then [get a] second position, store that — so a combination of points together will build a picture. Then when you actually change movements, it will vibrate more and more until you get the correct position,” Copping said.

For creating the winning design, the Ghost team (which also includes Jason Cheah, Shruti Grover and Idrees Rasouli) will receive undisclosed funding from Rio Tinto to further develop the technology.

[Via: TheEngineer]