Category: Works in Progress/Proposals

Too late to change?

I thought of another idea for my plush nightlight that I think I’m a bit more excited about.

I am thinking of creating a plush banana that you can zip closed. Once the banana has been “peeled” and the zipper crosses over the conductive thread the light turns on and it glows from within.

Perhaps the brightness can be controlled by the number of sections that have been peeled, ie- one for dim and two for bright.

thoughts?!?

For my plush nightlight I’m thinking of creating a stack of pancakes with goodies on top.

The butter, blueberries and raspberries would sparkle with the appropriate colored light as you shake the plush toy.

I had originally tested this by limiting the strand to 3 pixels and then changing the colors of the strip. In practice I imagine that I would sew each colored pixel in at the the right spot.

The test that I photographed is only using one pixel because the strand had a really poor connection.

  raspberry

  blueberry

  butter

I started out with some research into octopuses (octopi or octopodes) by visiting Eataly and checking out their seafood section.
My initial prototype was large, ungainly, and looked too much like a Rastafarian hat or a jelly fish. I did another form exploration before settling on a final shape. The second prototype looks like a colorful, striped hot air balloon, but has a better octopus-head shape.

After deciding on my body shape pattern, I started to sew the tentacles and large body sections. The picture above shows inside of the “chin strap” tentacles. They each have half of the magnetic snap, which is soldered to a long stranded wire for later use.

I will work on my LED circuit and sew the whole octopus together over the next few days!

The cumulonimbus cloud is not only a beautiful and destructive lightning cloud but also has one of the coolest sounding names of all the cloud formations.

After the events of the Superstorm these past few days I have been thinking a lot about my project for making. I cam to the conclusion that while a full scale plush version could be cool it lacked justification and reasoning. So back to more brainstorming, but this time with more of a designers intent. I believe a nightlight should provide comfort and reassurance while the user begins to fall asleep. Strangely lightning storms have always had this effect on me. For those who find lightning terrifying perhaps this can be used to help overcome their fears.

The sewing component would be the arduino casing and the main structure of the cloud. The electronics component would be arduino controlled lightning flashes using LED’s & EL wire with the option of sound effects using the Arduino Wave shield. Comments on this new direction welcome and appreciated.

Quarantined to my apartment the last couple of days due to the hurricane, has got me thinking about this plush project. My original idea that I posted was a tabletop portable night light made of felt. I really liked Richard’s post about a plush speaker. I am leaning more towards a bluetooth light up speaker. It would be wireless so you could throw it around the room. I ordered this speaker on Amazon that I’ll be using.

I would like to embark on an over ambitious mission to build an enclosed sitting area for children which is inspired by geology and magic. The outside will be made of wood and painted grey while the inside will be cushions and pillows which resemble crystals and light up. Below you will find inspiration and materials which I would like to explore, along with what I would like to use to power the glow.  The sketch model below will be captured in 123D catch and then tightened up to have printed and assembled.  Depending on how costly and time consuming this becomes I may have to scale it down to smaller models.

Materials: wood, fabric, EL Panels, EL wire, Inverters.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how the el panels and wire could enhance the luminescence of this fabric?  Below is a photo two friends of mine collaborated on. Heidi Lee makes incredible hats!! Andrew Strassar takes photographs which are amazing eye candy!

 

Glowing Geods!

 

 

 

Ab Rogers 2004, Kenny Schachter

Pods from another planet landed in a victorian house in Chelsea

 

Below are 2 views of a sketch model which will be 3d scanned and blown up to a larger scale.  Throughout this process i am interested to see what details survive.

 

 

Brighter than a lucky penny

z

Fabric and light together automatically makes me think of wearable technology, but since I had already worked on a light-up shirt for my first project, I wanted to do something different.

My first idea was around light and sound – a tambourine that lights up when you shake it. The inspiration from this one came from a dance I watched which takes place in a dark setting and only when the dancers move, their clothes light up. I thought of a tambourine as a dance prop.

 

My other idea was around making a backdrop, or wallpaper that could be used in a room, or ceiling. But finally, I decided that I will create some curtains that light up as it becomes dark outside.

 

Next steps:
– Design the curtain (color, fabric, paint/embroidery?)
– Code arduino for the light sensor.

For my night light I plan on making a plush frying pan and two strips of bacon. When the bacon is placed on the frying pan, they will flicker with light to imitate sizzling. I am not quite sure how to do this yet but will explore solutions.