My major difficulties were actually with attaching the snap and making the Pac-Man make firm contact with the band of fabric. The neoprene was too thick to directly put the snap in, so I had to put the snap in a lighter-weight fabric, and then sew this to the neoprene. This caused the Pac-Man to be raised far above the band of fabric, so that the conductive fabric elements did not make contact when they were supposed to. My original solution to this problem, which is shown, was to sew 2 more layers of neoprene to the bottom of the Pac-Man to thicken it so it would contact the fabric band, just in the area where it needed to make contact.

I'm pretty happy with how this turned out for a first project, as my background with both electronics and sewing is iffy at best. It has absolutely no practical use, but is fun to play with. Future modifications I'd like to make include adding more LEDs, and actually putting this on something other than an isolated rectangle of fabric. One thing that is somewhat disappointing is that this is something I could have made just as well with non-soft materials. In fact, it may even have gone better. In the future, I would like to try projects that are more suited to the materials we are using and get more into the textiles frame of mind.

I'm pretty happy with how this turned out for a first project. It has absolutely no practical use, but is fun to play with. Future modifications I'd like to make include adding more LEDs, and actually putting this on something other than an isolated rectangle of fabric. One thing that is somewhat disappointing is that this is something I could have made just as well with non-soft materials. In fact, it may even have gone better. In the future, I would like to try projects that are more suited to the materials we are using and get more into the textiles frame of mind.

I'm pretty happy with how this turned out for a first project. It has absolutely no practical use, but is fun to play with. Future modifications I'd like to make include adding more LEDs, and actually putting this on something other than an isolated rectangle of fabric. This is something I could have made just as well with non-soft materials. In fact, it may even have gone better. In the future, I would like to try to make my projects things that are more suited to the materials we are using.

I made a neoprene Pac-Man that spins on a snap on a band of fabric. When it is facing the LED, conductive fabric on the back of the Pac-Man completes a circuit, and the LED lights up to represent being nommed.

As you can see, the circuit setup is very simple:

This didn't really work, because it turns out fabric is flexible and it still bent away from the surface, so I sewed 2 more layers of neoprene to cover the entire bottom surface of the Pac-Man. Additionally, I did this in such a manner as to make the entire Pac-Man slightly concave, so that its edges, including the one with conductive fabric sewn to it, made contact with the rectangle of fabric.

I'm pretty happy with how this turned out for a first project. It has absolutely no practical use, but is fun to play with. Future modifications I'd like to make include adding more LEDs, and actually putting this on something other than an isolated rectangle of fabric.

I generally wanted to do something with Pac-Man and a bunch of LED's in a row. I had a lot of ideas for ways to go with this, but decided to start out with a very simple project.

My major difficulties were actually with attaching the snap and making the Pac-Man make firm contact with the band of fabric. The neoprene was too thick to directly put the snap in, so I had to put the snap in a lighter-weight fabric, and then sew this to the neoprene. This caused the Pac-Man to be raised far above the band of fabric, so that the conductive fabric elements did not make contact when they were supposed to. My original solution to this problem, which is shown, was to sew 2 more layers neoprene to the bottom of the Pac-Man to thicken it so it would contact the fabric band, just in the area where it needed to make contact.

This didn't really work, because it turns out fabric is flexible, so I sewed 2 more layers of neoprene to cover the entire bottom surface of the Pac-Man in such a way to make the entire thing slightly concave. This solves the problem in a much better manner.

This is what the whole thing looks like when Pac-Man isn't facing the LED:

I'm pretty happy with how this turned out for a first project. It has absolutely no practical use, but is fun to play with. Future modifications I'd like to make include adding more LEDs, and actually putting this on something other than just an isolated rectangle of fabric.

My major difficulties were actually with attaching the snap and making the Pac-Man make firm contact with the band of fabric, so that it actually completed the circuit. The neoprene was too thick to directly put the snap in, so I had to put the snap in a lighter-weight fabric, and then sew this to the neoprene. This caused the Pac-Man to be raised far above the band of fabric, so that the conductive fabric elements did not make contact when they were supposed to. My original solution to this problem, which is shown, was to sew 2 more layers neoprene to the bottom of the Pac-Man to thicken it so it would contact the fabric band.

This didn't really work, so I sewed 2 more layers of neoprene to cover the entire bottom surface of the Pac-man in such a way to make the entire thing slightly concave. This solves the problem in a much better manner.

I generally wanted to do something with Pac-Man and a bunch of LED's in a row. I had a lot of ideas for ways to go with this, but I decided to start out with a very simple project.

I made a neoprene Pac-Man that spins on a snap on a band of fabric. When it is facing the LED, conductive fabric on the back of the Pac-Man completes a circuit, and the LED lights up, to represent being nommed.

As you can see, the circuit set up is very simple:

http://web.mit.edu/kree/Public/whole.jpg

http://web.mit.edu/kree/Public/pacman.jpg

http://web.mit.edu/kree/Public/front.jpg

http://web.mit.edu/kree/Public/back.jpg

:Making:

First, this was a nonmotile pressure sensor, with a resistive plastic material between the conductive thread on the pacman and the conductive thread on the band.

I had a lot of different ideas for ways I could go with the general idea of 'Pac-Man sensor and a bunch of LED's in a row' but I decided to start out with something very simple.

I made a neoprene Pac-Man that spins on a snap. When it is facing the led, conductive fabric on the back of the Pac-Man completes a circuit, and the LED lights up, to represent being nommed.

neoprene, conductive and nonconductive thread, stretch conductive fabric, 1 led, 1 battery, snap

First, this was a pressure sensor, with a resistive plastic material between the conductive thread on the pacman and the conductive thread on the band.

[pic of remains]

Then I decided to tear it apart and try the spinning idea.

Things that were unfortunate:

The neoprene was too thick to directly put the snap in, so i had to put the snap in a lighter-weight fabric, and then sew this to the neoprene. This caused the Pac-Man to be raised far above the band of fabric, so that the conductive fabric elements did not make contact. My solution to this problem, though I'm not very happy with it, was to sew 2 more layers neoprene to the bottom of the Pac-Man to thicken it so it would contact the fabric band.

Pac-Man Project

I had a lot of different ideas for ways I could go with the general idea of 'Pac-Man and a bunch of LED's in a line' but I decided to start out with something very simple.

I made a neoprene Pac-Man that spins on a snap. When it is facing the led, conductive fabric on the Pac-Man completes a circuit, and the led lights up, to represent being nommed.

Materials:

neoprene, conductive thread, stretch conductive fabric, 1 led, 1 battery

Genesis:

Things that were unfortunate: