In this unit, we learned about sewing and e-textiles. Our project 2 was to create a working circuit that incorporates both sewing and the circuit playground express. My original plan was to create a ‘timer’ thing that can make a certain noise after a set amount of time after the press of a button by the user. But that idea served no actual purpose to me so I trashed that idea. I later thought of making a interactive mural about this circuits course. I wanted to make an interactive mural that can make sound and light up LEDs. I first thought of cutting out big letters that spell ‘CIRCUIT’ and I planned for putting the microprocessor (Circuit playground express) in the middle and 2 LEDs on the sides with 2 conductive fabric pieces above the LEDs. But due to time, I had to leave out the conductive fabric part and just go for the big letter, the microprocessor, and the 2 LEDs.
During the making process, I encountered many problems and challenges. The conductive thread kept on tangling and forming knots that all took a lot of time to untangle. Throughout this process I successfully mastered both the loop stitch and the sinch stitch. I also learned many techniques about different kinds of stitches as well as how I can use the code I know to program different e-textiles such as the microprocessor (Circuit playground express) used in the project.
I can definitely see myself creating more projects such as this one. I think I will learn even more with more experience in using and coding e-textiles. If I could redo this project, I would create a much more sophisticated project that I will make. Some examples might include a project with touch sensors, sound sensors, or motion sensors such as free-fall detection sensors.
In conclusion, I learned a lot from constructing this project and I look forward in making more projects similar to this one.