ETech: The LilyPad Sweatshop Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

I'm sitting in Leah Buechley's Lilypad Electronic Fashion tutorial. Where we'll be playing with Lilypad Arduino kits, a collection of sewable electronic pieces that lets you build soft electronic devices. Essentially it's a specially packaged Arduino, a sewable computer.

The materials are strange and hard to work with... - Leah Buechley

Hacking (and sewing) electronics

The aim for the workshop was to produce a "soundie", a garment which produes a sound when touched in a certain place, or different sounds when touched in different ways. Issued with a SparkFun LilyPad Pro Kit, some conductive thread, conductive material for the touch sensors, and of course a needle, we set to work. Well after the obligatory jokes about how this was going to look on our expense reports obviously...


The LilyPad t-shirt
Despite my awful stitching I actually managed to get my garment working, and if you see me around ETech wearing my conference t-shirt, slap me on the shoulder. The t-shirt will scream for me, so I don't have to...