March 6th, 2011 
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Just a quick note on a couple of our wearable technology (WT) projects: Liz’s raincoat and John’s top hat.
Raincoat: This was Liz’s first real WT project taken to completion, and there was definitely some “pound to fit, paint to match” involved in order to meet her goal of having it ready in time to wear to Ignite Boulder 14. She attached diffused RGB LEDs (and some beads for additional diffusing) to each button on her coat, wired them up to a power source and an Arduino onto which she sketched 2 programs: a slowly-changing color mode and flashing rainbow. In the next few weeks she plans to improve both hardware and software so that it will be beautiful on the inside as well as the outside.
Top Hat: John English added an individually programmable LED strip to a top hat. This is one component of his wardrobe for Burning Man and Apogaea this year, but he also wanted to heat up Nederland’s Frozen Dead Guy Days with it. He is currently serving up two patterns of light, also using an Arduino: a rotating rainbow pattern and another using an accelerometer, which makes the LED strip change color based on his head / hat position.
John is no stranger to making costumes and other props for Burning Man and Apogaea, so expect more like this to come.
See additional photos and video of both projects in our Wearable Technology Flickr group.
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