Friday, April 25, 2014

Project Runway

For this project I decide to make a shirt that would react to the wearer's acceleration. The original purpose for this shirt was for cyclist to wear so that drivers can see  the cyclist at night. I intended to use Electroluminescent wire (EL Wire), However I did not have a proper AC to DC adapter to make use of the EL wire with my circuit. So I switch to LEDS.

Circuit not in shirt
There are two sensors effecting the light, a photo sensor and an accelerometer. The photo sensor effects the intensity of LEDs; the brighter the environment, the dimmer the LEDs and vice virsa. The purpose of this is to make the lights more visible at night time when drivers cannot see cyclist very well while at the same time, not distracting drivers during the day if the lights are too bright. The accelerometer effects the states of the LEDs. When there is a change in acceleration (if the cyclist slows or speeds up), the lights will begin to blink/pulse similar to hazard lights on a car. These are used to signal drivers to show that a cyclist's movements are changing and to be wary of that.

This circuit is kept in a small pocket on the back of the cyclist's shirt. The LEDs set outside of the shirt and are then connected to the board. This is all powered by a 12 volt battery, so it can be portable.