Production: I <3 You

Lab 2: Software

The Basics

This time around, there’s no physical switch. Instead, it’s the computer telling the LED’s how to perform.

Basic Parallel Circuit picture and Initial LED setup

My idea was to create a shirt with an LED light on the front. I came up with the idea based on single individuals. Subtle hints are out. If you want to get someone’s attention, you’ve got to be bold. Giving someone eyes in WSA won’t get you anywhere. That’s where my shirt comes into play.

The Plan

The heart requires 10 LED lights.

The parrallell circuit (please ignore the pit stains this is a gross old shirt I promise I will throw away)

However, I didn’t have to program each light individually because I wanted the whole light to flash at once. So using the simple program that we created in class, I could control all 10 lights. This works because I could create a parallel circuit (thank you David!) after connecting the first light.

The Pitfall

After Soldering all the lights together. I had a half-success. I alternated red and white LED lights assuming they would all light up. However, once the circuit was connected to the Arduino, and I pressed the button, only the red lights lit up.

I tried to understand why this might happen. Maybe I wired all the white LED in reverse: connecting the negative with positive and vice versa. However, I tested this by connecting those individual bulbs to the power source and they still wouldn’t light up.

My conclusion is that the white and red LED lights don’t work together in a parallel circuit.

The final outcome

For my first attempt at a wearable, I had half a heart light up! Still exciting though.