Week 6 HW: Halloween Costume Ideas

My first thought was “WINGS.”

After doing some research, I found LED and fiber optic lit wings. And dresses. And make-up. Needless to say, I’m now obsessed with fiber optics in costumes because they look so cool (when not overdone). I think they’d be perfect for the Halloween Parade. They also don’t seem to be super complicated to work with. Famous last words.

My 3 ideas are:

1. Wings with LEDs in the center and fiber optic cables used to form light pattern on the wings
2. Rocket booster back pack with LED’s attached
3. Dino hood/back piece with either just LEDs or fiber optics on the spine

Below are sketches of ideas and potential wing shapes.

If I make wings, I will somewhat be following this Instructables tutorial, but don’t want to make an exact copy of them. If it’s not too complicated, I’m toying with the idea of adding a microphone sensor so the color changes with volume of sound. It would be a slower transition color change than the LED’s that respond to music though. I’m ordering an adafruit Flora microcontroller and LED strip to use in the costume. For power, I intend to use a 6V coin cell battery and mount that with the the other electronics in a box. I will most likely rely on the battery pack toggle switch to control power.

At this point, I’m not sure how I want to program the colors for the costume.

Here are some other inspiration costumes:

https://www.instructables.com/id/Lightwings-Fiber-Optic-Fairy-Wings/

https://www.instructables.com/id/Moving-Glider-Wings/

https://www.instructables.com/id/Made-with-Magic-Fiber-Optic-Wings/

https://www.instructables.com/id/Fiber-Optic-Makeup/

https://www.instructables.com/id/Fiber-Optic-Dress/

https://www.instructables.com/id/Jellyfish-Skirt/

Here’s a key resource link as I (hopefully) learn to use them for my project:

https://www.instructables.com/id/The-Beginners-Guide-to-Fiber-Optics/

Catherine