Two shots of a Thriller jacket with LED strips being worn by Louise Katzovitz, one from the front and the other from the back.

Thrills With An LED “Thriller” Jacket

October 11, 2022 by Abe Connelly 19 Comments

[Louise Katzovitz] has created a light-up jacket in the style of the jacket worn by Michael Jackson in the 1983 music video for “Thriller”. [Louise Katzovitz]’s Thriller jacket is the perfect example of combining sewing hacks and electronic hacks to make an awesome, wearable jacket.

A bomber jacket was used as the base form to layer on the sequins and LED strips. Instead of bands of metal studs, [Louise] used WS2812B 60 pixels/m LED strips. 3D-printed transparent PLA “gems” were placed on top of the LEDs to mimic the form of the metal studs in the original jacket and provide diffusion for the underlying LEDs.

Each LED strip was laid out on a piece of vinyl strip. Then, a top layer of vinyl was cut to allow each of the LEDs to poke through, with the 3D printed gems super-glued on top. The assembled LED bands are attached to the jacket by Velcro with the wiring fed behind the lining material, which can be removed easily via small hooks. The whole thing is driven by an Arduino Nano and a 5 V power bank.

With the details and process worked out, [Louise] even made a tiny version of the jacket for her dog. We’ve featured LED wearables and fashion before and [Louise]’s jacket is a great addition. These projects are perfect for anyone who wants to wow their friends this upcoming Halloween season. Video after the break!

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RatPack Is A Wearable Fit For A Rodent

October 5, 2022 by Lewin Day 6 Comments

Rats are often seen as pests and vermin, but they can also do useful jobs for us, like hunting for landmines. To aid in their work, [kjwu] designed the RatPack, a wearable device that lets these valiant rats communicate with their handlers.

The heart of the build is an ESP32-CAM board, which combines the capable wireless-enabled microcontroller with a small lightweight camera. It’s paired with a TinyML machine learning board, and it’s all wrapped up in a 3D printed enclosure that serves as a backpack to fit African Giant Pouched rats.

The RatPack can provide a live video feed. However, its main purpose is to track the rat’s movements through the use of an accelerometer. This data is then fed to the machine learning subsystem, which analyzes it to detect certain gestures the rats have been trained to make. The idea is that when the rat identifies an object of interest, such as a landmine, it will perform a predetermined gesture. The RatPack would then detect this, and transmit a signal to the rat’s handlers. Given a rat’s limbs are all on the bottom of its body, this approach is useful. It’s kind of hard to ask a rat to press a button on its own back, after all.

Finding and carefully disposing of unexploded ordnance is a problem facing many societies around the world. We’re lucky in many cases that the rats are helping out with this difficult and dangerous job.

Watch on the wrist, with all the sensors facing the camera. There's a lot of them, and a lot of wires of all kinds tying everything together.

2022 Cyberdeck Contest: IP00-Minus, A Daring Wearable

October 4, 2022 by Arya Voronova 10 Comments

[Rob]’s IP00-Minus watch stands out on the Cyberdeck Contest project list page; it’s clear he decided to go a different path than most other hackers, and we can certainly see the advantages. For example, if there’s no case, there’s no need to redesign it each time you want to add a module — and [Rob] has added many, many modules to this watch.

Picking between regular LCD, memory LCD, and OLED displays can be a tricky decision to make when planning out your gadget, so he just added all three. The CircuitPython firmware initially attempted to resist the trio, but was eventually defeated through patching. Jokes aside, we can almost feel the joy that [Rob] must have felt after having put this watch on for the first time, and this project has some serious creative potential for a hacker.

[Rob] has been focusing on day-to-day usability first and foremost, with pleasantly clicky encoders, impeccable performance of its watch duty, unparalleled expandability, and comfortable wrist fit — it provides a feeling no commercial wearable could bring.

Out of the myriad of sensors, the air quality sensor has been the most useful so far, letting him know when to open a window or leave a particularly crowded place. The ESP32-S3 powered watch has been quite a playground for [Rob]’s software experiments, and given the sheer variety of hardware attached, we’re sure it will bring unexpected synergy-driven ideas. Plus, it’s no doubt a great conversation starter in nerd and non-nerd circles alike.

Good things happen when you give hackers a wrist-worn watch full of sensors, whether it’s a particularly impressive event badge, a modified firmware for an open source smartwatch, or a custom piece that pushes the envelope of DIY hardware.

EEG graph with activity sections highlighted, one part highlighted as "F" and other as "6"

DREEMWORK Lets You Code Morse From Inside Your Dream

October 1, 2022 by Arya Voronova 27 Comments

Lucid dreaming fascinates hackers. Every few years for over a decade now, we’ve seen a serious project dedicated to studying or taking advantage of this phenomenon, and the interest in this topic hasn’t faded still. [Michael] has contacted us to tell about a small and unconventional breakthrough that a few lucid dream hackers have accomplished — communicating in Morse code from their dream using eye movements.

These hackers are using Dreem 2 and 3 headbands, which include clinical-grade polysomnography features like EEG measurements, which is instrumental for decoding eye movements. [Michael] tells us that one of the participants, [Sebastiii], was able to transfer the letter F by looking twice to the left, then right and left again – ..-. in Morse. With an off-the-shelf headband, this information transmission method is quite accessible to anyone willing to learn Morse, and [Michael] himself is now working on an automated decoding solution. We might forget what happens in our dreams fairly quickly, but this unexpected side channel could be a good counter.

[Michael] has tipped us off to many of the projects we’ve covered, and himself has quite a history in the field. His own research into using Morse to communicate out of lucid dreams dates back as far as 2012. If your ham exam preparations have you dream in Morse, perhaps this is the perfect project to join. A lot of projects we’ve seen focus on gaining enough awareness to achieve lucidity first, like the variety of lucid dream-invoking masks we’ve covered over the years. This part being thoroughly explored, it makes sense that communication is the next frontier to be tackled.

A person sits on a couch in the background wearing a VR headset. A keyboard is on their lap and a backpack studded with antennas and cables sits in the foreground.

2022 Cyberdeck Contest: Cyberpack VR

September 25, 2022 by Navarre Bartz 4 Comments

Feeling confined by the “traditional” cyberdeck form factor, [adam] decided to build something a little bigger with his Cyberpack VR. If you’ve ever dreamed of being a WiFi-equipped porcupine, then this is the cyberdeck you’ve been waiting for.

Craving the upgradability and utility of a desktop in a more portable format, [adam] took an old commuter backpack and squeezed in a Windows 11 PC, Raspberry Pi, multiple wifi networks, an ergonomic keyboard, a Quest VR headset, and enough antennas to attract the attention of the FCC. The abundance of network hardware is due to [adam]’s “new interest: a deeper understanding of wifi, and control of my own home network even if my teenage kids become hackers.”

The Quest is setup to run multiple virtual displays via Immersed, and you can relax on the couch while leaving the bag on the floor nearby with the extra long umbilical. One of the neat details of this build is repurposing the bag’s external helmet mount to attach the terminal unit when not in use. Other details we love are the toggle switches and really integrated look of the antenna connectors and USB ports. The way these elements are integrated into the bag makes it feel borderline organic – all the better for your cyborg chic.

For more WiFi backpacking goodness you may be interested in the Pwnton Pack. We’ve also covered other non-traditional cyberdecks including the Steampunk Cyberdeck and the Galdeano. If you have your own cyberdeck, you have until September 30th to submit it to our 2022 Cyberdeck Contest!

An image of the track system of the Calico wearable on top of a garment. Different possible positions of the device (elbow, shoulder, etc) are shown by red dots overlayed on the top of the image.

The Calico Wearable Rides The Rails

September 14, 2022 by Navarre Bartz 12 Comments

If you’re feeling underwhelmed by yet another smartwatch announcement, then researchers at the University of Maryland may have just the wearable for you. Instead of just tracking your movement from one spot, Calico winds around you like a cartoon sidekick.

Using a “railway system,”(PDF) the Calico can travel around a garment to get better telemetry than if it were shackled to a wrist. By moving around the body, the robot can track exercise, teach dance moves, or take up-close heart measurements. Tracks can be magnetically linked across garments, and Calico can use different movement patterns to communicate information to the user.

This two-wheeled robot that rides the rails is built around a custom PCB with a MDBT42Q microcontroller for a brain which lets it communicate with a smartphone over Bluetooth Low Energy. Location is monitored by small magnets embedded in the silicone and plastic living hinge track, and it can use location as a way to provide “ambient visual feedback.”

The researchers even designed a friendly cover for the robot with googly eyes so that the device feels more personable. We think animated wearables could really take off since everyone loves cute animal companions, assuming they don’t fall into the uncanny valley.

If you love unusual wearables as much as we do, be sure to check out Wearable Sensors on Your Skin and the Wearable Cone of Silence.

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3D Printing A Prosthetic-Compatible Golf Club

September 2, 2022 by Danie Conradie No comments

Relearning an old sport, or starting a new one, can be challenging for amputees. Besides the obvious physical aspects, custom prosthetics or adaptors might need to be made and fitted, which can be very expensive. With the power of 3D printing and some machining, [Ian Davis] was able to build a custom prosthetic golf club to get a quadruple amputee back on the greens.

The recipient of this prosthetic lost both hands above the wrists, so [Ian] had to come up with a mechanism that could hold the club and mimic wrist motion throughout the swing. He was able to achieve this motion with a simple four-plate hinge for each arm. For optimal ergonomics, [Ian] also added two-axis adjustability, with only a single bolt needing to be loosened per axis. A standard golf club can be used and is clamped in the printed holders.

Machined prosthetic sockets were used to allow quick connection to the user’s existing prosthetic forearms. Theoretically, this should also allow him to switch clubs without excessive hassle. [Ian], an amputee himself, has used his engineering skills to build a series of prosthetic hands and even a custom controller mod to get back to gaming with fewer flesh fingers.

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