[Jeri’s] Dress Lights Up When Someone Invades Her Personal Space — Step Back Nerds!

[Jeri] threw down the geeky fashion gauntlet by building this LED enhanced dress. She chose to assemble the project for her trip to BarBot 2011, and we can’t think of a more appropriate setting for such a garment. It uses a motion sensor to set off a delayed pattern of blue lights hidden underneath the fabric.The best part of the hack is the instamatic camera. It looks like a fashion accessory, but it’s really hiding all of the circuitry for the lights.

Inside the camera a PIR sensor waits until it detects motion, sending a signal through an op-amp to the trigger circuitry. A 74LS14 Schmitt Trigger chip teams up with some resistor-capacitor timer circuits to build a delay chain for the LEDs. This way, after motion is detected the LEDs come on and off in a staggered pattern that doesn’t require a microcontroller and is very pleasing to the eye. See the Analog win for yourself after the break.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLFLwZ-JGaU&w=470]

34 thoughts on “[Jeri’s] Dress Lights Up When Someone Invades Her Personal Space — Step Back Nerds!

  1. Hate to nitpick but a PIR is a motion sensor, not a proximity sensor. HaD got the title wrong, Jeri even mentions it as motion activated in passing in the video. Motion is still cool but proximity would be really funny. Especially if it had sound too… “Please step away from the geek!”

  2. does ‘invading her personal space’ include looking at her breasts? If so the light just below on the right in the image is entrapment.

    ‘I swear I was looking at the light, honest.’

  3. The dress is pretty nifty, and the description says most all the electronics are tucked inside the camera which is a nice way of hiding all the gear in plain site, but what the hell is she holding in her left hand that has 2 NES controllers and some kind of screen… awwwwwww it’s a NERD trap and I fell for it… what I meant to say was …. she’s all hawt and stuff… yeah….

  4. Now combine that with some form of remote eye tracking and make the dress light up where the other person is looking. Giving easy reference to “my eyes are up here, guys.”

    Mind you all those brains in that awesome body? PRICELESS!

  5. The title is very misleading.

    The PIR will trigger once she herself moves, or if it see someone/something else move.

    Proximity would be with a some kind of range finder, not PIR.

    Which does give me some ideas…..

  6. To all of those who just want a peek under Jeri’s dress: your wish will be granted in this video but maybe not in the way you expect :-)

    Great video Jeri!

    ===Jac

  7. If I recall, the head-mounted EEG-controlled lightbulb project used a similar electronics-in-a-pendant deal. Could you fit the electronics for both the dress and the EEG bulb in the instamatic enclosure? Would it be reasonably safe? (Don’t know the voltages involved with the PIR and the under-dress lights).

    I’m a big fan of wearable electronics. I hope Jeri keeps up her experimentation in this field.

  8. repelling nerds with leds like repelling lions with steaks MAJOR LOL.

    more of everything jeri,

    more projects and more of you please,

    you are a eyecandy jewel in amonst a sea of jeweless
    belly buttons (whoops, just given away my best nerd chat up line, damn it) LOL

  9. Geez, I can see the nerd dr00l oozing out of my monitor…. calm down guys lol I’m also getting flashes of Napoleon Dynamite and his uber “nun-chuck” skillz for some reazon… with Pedro blinking rapidly in backround

  10. She says she is using 74LS logic, but I’m not sure that would light up LEDs the way it does in the video. Max source current in the case of a grounded LED is only ~0.4mA and a high output is pretty darn close to VF for a blue LED. I would expect half the LEDs to be very feint.

    Perhaps it was some other logic family, or the buffers are non inverting?

  11. @nes: according to her drawing towards the end of the video, the buffers are inverting.

    i get your point. “guaranteed operating range” of 74ls04 is 0.4ma, but e.g. 74act04 could drive a led.

    and oblig comment on jeri’s looks: the pose in the top picture reminds me of karen gillan in doctor who.

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