LUMI

"LUMI is a project incorporating RGB LED components with bluetooth technology to create programable LED clothing.

Example: LED dress that can change colors by selecting a color on a smartphone screen. You could also make it turn on & off, flash, go rainbow..."

-Mia Skinner, Team Lead

10 Dress Fashion line for CMU's Luna Gala Fashion Show

Details:

Bluetooth serial communication to arduino mini microcontroller. Home made perf boards compact enough to fit discriminatly onto users bodies with little pretusion. Heat and power dissapation from battery cell to lighting, and not burn wearer. Wire routing as too not interfere with mobility or diminish asthetic. designed curcuits for lighting then fabrication.

Funciton:

Electrical and curcuit design and fabrication. Programming inital wireless communication

Story:

In Fall 2013, two girls came down to RoboClub asking about Bluetooth. Having worked on wireless communitcations, i offered my help. The first was a Buisness major named Mia, the second an art and clothing designer named Christine. They pitched an idea for Bluetooth LED controlled clothing for an upcoming fashion show in the spring, and they we're recuiting for electrial and software folk. Hearing the project, I jumped at the chance, and joined the cause.

The rest of the fall, we met weekly to plan out the electronics for the ten dresses and selection parts. Mia worked on securing money from various organization and funding commitees, such as the Student Undergrad Research Grants, RoboClub Projects Grant, the Luna Gala funding committee, and The CMU Build 18 Hackathon funding. Christine finally the design of the clothes. Mike (Mia's BF) and I planned out the curcuits, nessary communication protocals, desired bluetooth modules, and the proper powercells need to fit the occasion. Mia and Christine had all planned out the looked and asetics of the dress, it was our job to make the vision come to life.

Luna Gala was set on Valentine's Day Febuary 14.

At start of spring semester we hit the ground running. Part of Lumi was project under the umbella of Build 18, a week long Hackathon at the begining of the spring semester hosted by the ECE (18) department. The weeks goals were to figure out the neopixels strps, establish bluetooth connection to the android phone and have at least 3 dress to demo by the end of the week, the Dresses were: Sparkle pants, Rainbow pants, and Beaded soulder. Through a montage of soldering and wiring nonstop leds, shorting out, All nighters in the lab, and resistor limbo gone wrong(Magic smoke). We meet are goals, and demoed a strong presentation.

The next four week til the fashion show were easier, but the last week was crunchtime. Three all nighters, dresses broke unexpectedly at the dress and practice rehersal. For me, fabrication the boards and ensuring they work. Debugging curcuits, Find more effective ways of dissipating heat than piggy backing voltage regulators. burning out Cheap Chinese batteries.

The Rainbow Dress was our flag ship. Ten strips of RGB Neopixel LEDs. The dress could change color and preform series of complicated light patterns.

The day of the fashion show was grand. The dresses worked. and the appualse form the crowd was magnificent. Never before have I work in such a cohesive team, where everyone had their own unique set of skill to contribute and sacrifice down to the last minute. The journey I believe was more fun than destination.

Team:

Mike Ryan - Electrical and android GUI,

Mia Skinner - Team Lead, Buisness coordinator, Dress fabrication,

Christin Bongiorni - Dress Design and Fabrication,

Job Bedford - Electrical and Board Fabrication

Katherine Martinez - Electrical and Dress Fabrication

DIfficulties:

Short circuiting Neopixel strips constantly, Dissapation mosfets and voltage regulators heat with makeshifts heat sinks. Even then could only power dresses for a little over 15 minutes at a time before burning. Soldering takes many many many hours for complex multilight systems.