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As the first quarter is coming to an end, it is time to start thinking about our personal projects that we will complete next quarter. Obviously, this project must include electronics and extend what we have learned in the classroom to a real world situation. We were encouraged to choose a project that interested us and create something that we could use in the future. Since I'm a competitive gymnast and spend four hours a day tumbling, flipping, and swinging, I thought it would be neat to make a device that would track acceleration in a flip or measure the force of impact on a landing. Below, I will detail three project ideas that are related to wearable electronics and could potentially help me with my project. My friend Maxine Tan did a similar project but tailored to ice skating, so I will also be using her digital portfolio as a guide.

Project 1: SOundie

Soundie is a hoodie that is decked out with conductive fabric, LEDs, and a speaker, so when the wearer touches it in certain places, it changes the pitch of the music, which then turns on or off LEDs sewed on the back. Basically, when the wearer touches the conductive fabric, they are completing a circuit. The more they handle the conductive fabric, the lower the resistance. Alternatively, the resistance increases when the wearer touches it less. Although not exactly what I have in mind for my own project, the Instructable on how to make a Soundie provides good insight on how to incorporate electronics into a fabric, how to use the LilyPad Arduino, and how to take collected data (in this case voltage) and make it an analog input.

"Soundie: A Musical Touch-sensitive Light-up Hoodie." Instructables, https://www.instructables.com/id/musical-conductivity-detecting-light-up-hoodie/. Accessed 25 October 2018.

Project 2: Wearable skin temperature logger

This project was also found on Instructables. Like the Soundie, it is a wearable electronic, but instead of tracking conductivity, it tracks skin temperature. There are two parts to this project: the temperature sensing platform and the data acquisition module. The creator hopes to eventually advance his prototype to detect the wearer's thermal state based on skin temperature and have a heating/cooling system connected to it. A thermistor is used to measure the skin temperature, and a gesture sensor is used to tell the data acquisition module what the wearer's thermal state is and when to record skin temperature. This information is kept on a micro SD card. In summary, this project could inspire the data acquisition module used in my project.

Project 3: Color changing Jacket

I found this inspirational project on the Sparkfun website. The creator, Matt Pinner, wanted to create a "smarter jacket" that could change according to motion and the sounds in his environment. The part I'm most interested in is the motion reactivity for wearables. For the sound aspect, he used a sound detector, Sparkfun Spectrum shield, and the Teensy 3.2 board. For the motion component, he used a combined accelerometer and gyro breakout which detects changes in acceleration, especially when the wearer is turning around or spinning. Depending on the levels of motion and sound, LED displays colors accordingly. In the Instructable, Pinner also details a smoothing technique of the software called exponentially weighted moving average. EWMA preserves the reactivity, so drastic changes result in changes in the LEDs, but it also eliminates flickering/flashing from inconsistent data.

My tentative materials list with prices:

Updated materials list:

Design Specs:

I will use bluetooth to receive the data on my phone from the Flora Bluefruit. This requires the Adafruit Bluefruit LE Connect app and a microcontroller (in my case, the Adafruit Flora). To measure acceleration, I will use an accelerometer which will go through the Flora to send data to the Bluefruit. All three components will be sewn into an ankle sleeve for the gymnast to wear. The article worn by the gymnast containing the device necessitates crucial consideration because it cannot inhibit the movement or mobility of a gymnast. Furthermore, the smaller and lighter it is, the less of a distraction is will be.