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Ross Dalziel @cheapjack edited this page May 26, 2020 · 6 revisions

Welcome to the Wearable Technology Group Wiki!

What do we do?

The group work on a variety of projects from decorative pieces using sewable LEDs to personal health monitors incorporating biometric sensors.

Neopixels sewn in to cloth Conductive thread and wool

Left: Flashing neopixels (LED lights) sewn in to cloth. Right: Conductive thread and wool.

Everyone is welcome - it's free!

If you've never stitched a circuit before then come along and someone will be happy to show you how. We have a box of wearable-related items you can experiment with - including fabrics, wearable microcontrollers, conductive thread, sewable LEDs, and interesting sensors.

When do we do it?

The Wearable Tech group meets at 7pm on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month, at DoES Liverpool.

Check the calendar if in doubt.

How to contact us?

What are we currently doing?

Some of the projects our group is currently working on are listed below, and we'd love to see any projects you're working on too!

  • Making Natural Dyes This is our current low tech lockdown activity (as we can't easily get at our ESPs and neopixels at the moment). It's cheap and easy to join in and has lots of potential uses
  • BioMaterials A sub group of the Wearable group looking into DIY bio-tech
  • Wearable Tech Workshops Workshop introducing Wearable tech with 555 timers and ESP8266/32 and fabric switches with Laura, Jackie & Ross
  • Make some exhibits for Liverpool Make Fest which is on 29th June 2019 at Liverpool Central Library
  • Wing back pack
  • Defence Dress

Circuit Playground Wearable magnetometer

Left: Circuit Playground wearable. Right: Wearable sensor to help with physical exercise.

Lauras' Useful Links

Here's some helpful resources, feel free to add your own!

  • Hackster.io Wearables Group (internet) is an online group of wearable tech folks working on a wide range of projects.

  • Kitronik (UK) sell a lot of e-textiles products really good for beginners & for educational projects (see also: Tutorials - beginner to advanced guides, including basic e-textiles circuits, switches & buttons).

  • Adafruit Wearables (USA) lots of wearable components, all with extensive tutorials (see also: Handcrafting sensors). Note: You may have to pay import duties as they ship from USA

  • Pimoroni (UK) sell a wide variety of electronics etc, including e-textiles /wearables including some from Adafruit and Kitronik

  • Proto-Pic (UK) sell a wide variety of e-textiles / wearable electronics, good source of Velostat (pressure sensitive sheet), spools of conductive thread, conductive fabric and thermochromic pigment. Also sells Adafruit products.

  • Cool components (UK) sells a wide variety of e-textiles / wearable electronics, good source of Velostat (pressure sensitive sheet), spools of conductive thread, conductive fabric and thermochromic pigment. Also sells Adafruit products.

  • How to Get What you Want - tutorials to make your own sensors, switches and some more complex projects. Good resource for conductive materials etc. Also on Instructables.

  • Softwear has resources for e-textiles & Arduino projects.

  • E-textile Lounge have lots of tutorials and guides from basic to advanced.

  • Eyebeam computational fashion - takes a while to load, but has some good information on various aspects of wearable technology including fabrics, energy and sensors.

  • [How to program Digispark boards - (cheap Chinese version of a Lily Tiny)] (https://digistump.com/wiki/digispark/tutorials/connecting) - We have some of these in the box

  • Magazines such as Hackspace Magazine often have how-to articles for wearable tech projects. You can subscribe for a printed copy or download pdfs free (https://hackspace.raspberrypi.org/issues). Issue 4 has a useful introduction on pages 34 - 46 and issue 19 has a simple necklace design by Sophy Wong on pages 100 - 105 (also see https://sophywong.com for inspiration).

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