karenvellensky

Low Lights Skirt, progress – Karen Vellensky

Some progress shots. Video to come! Instructable here!

Button holes installed into interior of the pleats

The button holes allow the circuit to pass between pleats

Final Project Ideas – Karen Vellensky

Clockwise from top left:

Children’s skirt that lights up when the wearer spins.
Ear bud earrings.
Fiber optic fascinator hat with firework animation.
Box pleated skirt with LEDs that light up the inner pleats.

Southern Flower – Karen Vellensky

It’s too hot for such a tiny fan!

Nuzzle – Karen Vellensky

<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/144718415″>Cutie hats – Proof of Concept</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/user12975396″>karen vee</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>

For my innovative switch project I knitted a pair of hats with conductive yarn. When the patches of conductive yarn in both hats touch, the arduino board sends a signal to the led to light up in a pattern of random colors. The blinking led signifies the wearers excitement about being nuzzled by their companion in the second hat.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well the yarn worked despite how thin it is compared to the yarn weight I used. Were I to do the project from the beginning, I would have knitted both patches of the conductive yarn into the brim. As it is now, one patch of conductive yarn is in the brim while the second is on the crown of the head. This make contact between the four patches a bit unreliable. I’d also like to see how it looks with 2 – 4 more leds.

I really enjoyed making this project, a big thank you to Jenna for helping me figure out the coding and circuit! (code source: http://ardx.org/src/circ/CIRC12-code-SPAR.txt)

Circuits 08, 09, and 13 – Karen Vellensky

Circuit 08 https://vimeo.com/143942398

Circuit 09 https://vimeo.com/143942455

Circuit 13 https://vimeo.com/143942456

Angel’s Glow, Dinoflagellate – Karen Vellensky

It took more than 140 years to solve the mystery of soldiers’ glowing wounds after the Battle of Shiloh. The Union victory left more than 16,000 soldiers wounded and more than 3,000 dead. As troops waited in the mud for up to two days for attention from the overwhelmed medics, they noticed a strange phenomenon; the wounds of some of the soldiers were glowing a faint blue. Later on, the soldiers with glowing wounds had improved rates of recovery and survival. In light of this seemingly protective charm, the blue light was knick-named Angel’s Glow.

In 2001 the son of a microbiologist visited the battleground on a school trip. When he heard the story his curiosity was peaked. He enlisted the help of his mother to do an experiment to prove his theory that Angel’s Glow was in fact a bacteria that is bioluminescent. They were successful and thusly solved the one hundred and forty year old mystery.

Dinoflagellate, a single cell organism is an example of bioluminescence.

Prototypes

Process

This project was fun to conceptualize and to build, but frustrating to get the LED lights to defuse evenly throughout. I used speckled teal lame spandex and teal sequined net. I attempted to create a defused effect with 12 white LEDs stuffed into the belly of the plushie with a thin layer of polyfill between the LEDs and the interior of the fabric. I might have been more successful working in a slightly smaller scale with the same amount of LEDs. If I could have done one thing differently, I would have found another kind of light source or worked with a concept that intentionally had points of light instead of struggling to get a tool to perform a function it is not capable of. I enjoyed sewing sequins which is a material I have avoided in the past.