NYC Resistor hosted a wearable wireless workshop today. It was taught by [Rob Faludi] and [Kate Hartman]. They brought along their recently released LilyPad XBee breakout boards. The goal of the class was to use the digital radios to build wireless communication gloves. Above, you can see the conductive thread sewn into the fingertips to key the device. The signal is transmitted to the other glove, which flashes an indicator LED so you can communicate using Morse code.
That’s great, but why does it need an entire microcontroller and stuff to transmit morse over radio, when a little transmitter/receiver chip will do the same job with less bulk?
@ melt
because the goal of the course was to use the xbee’s. But it does seem like they could have thought of some more innovative ideas than morse code…
I totally thought of this when I was in school! I wanted to build a simple transmitter/receiver “dead bug style” inside a pen, using the button on the end as a key and having a tiny LED somewhere so you could message people with a similar pen. The only problem is you’d need to learn morse :)
Actually, now I think about it you can use a 1MHz oscillator as a simple AM transmitter than can be picked up by commercial radios tuned to 1000. Perhaps I’ll resurrect the idea.
I remember something from one of the Radio Shack topical project “notebooks” that had an AM transmitter you could build from a plain NPN transistor, a couple of resistors, a 1.5v battery, and a hand-wound coil that just happened to be the diameter of a Bic pen. Combine that with an old AM radio and you’ve got yourself a project.
I was mistaken. It was one cap and one resistor. Replace the resistor with a resistive sensing element and you’ve got yourself a tiny telemetry transmitter.
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~antoon/circ/rft1.htm
Ha ha when I was a kid I had one of those “project” kits from Radio shack to build my own mini transmitter .. It was very easy.
Then I discovered Ham Radio … and nothing has been the same since. :)
@melt and @liam actually there isn’t a microcontroller on the glove, it’s just the lilypad circuit board with Xbee nicely attached for ease of sewing. Because the Xbee itself would be damn near impossible to sew those little pins.
awww, just like edison and his wife.
nice.
The guy kinda reminds me of sylar…
Now the glove looks all sinister…
Can we read anything into these two looking just like the video shop owner and his girlfriend in Men in Black II (albeit with more hair)?
I guess they must’ve only spent $1 on their lobster dinner and it was full of mercury…
well, I’ll say this… the one on the right is a total stud muffin. I dunno about that muppet looking girl though. And why isn’t there a more manly thread friendly arduino clone…
@spadefinger: Lol – more like Syler’s “slow” brother who only thinks he has powers.
woah.. she’s hot.. pix please.
@aka-44:
Get out more. Seriously.
@3d:
how will that help me get pix of her?