Spidey Sense
by Shan
by Shan Gao
Inspiration
I got the idea of making an interactive Halloween Toy due to preparing for Halloween these weeks. While taking a look of different kind of sensors we had learned, I popped up the idea of creating a spider which could knot web by interacting with the pressure sensor as its belly.
Material
Conductive yarn, Wera Tech Tex 100/2 BL Trial SH Undyed
Making a conductive pom-pom
The first step is a regular way of making pompom. I made two circle pompom maker with cardboard. Placed the two rings together, wrapped thread around them. Then cut around the edges of the doughnut layer at a time. And firmly tie the thread together between the 2 pieces of cardboard.. Removed the cardboard, I got a conductive pompom composed of wool and conductive steel fibers.
Making a felted pompom pressure sensor
Once I have the pom pom, I washed it with hot water and soap to make it felt. I kept rubbing until it felts and dry off it with towel. While at the first time, it was not that tight and felted as it is right now. What I did is wash and dry the pompom again, it looked better after that. (Actually, you can also do it by putting it into a washing machine.)
Making a spider toy with the felted pompom
Then I started to build the body and legs of the spider. I used four pieces of pipe cleaners. I made a loop in the middle of one of the pipe cleaner, and twist the other three around middle of first pipe cleaner. Adjust them to look like legs. At last, glued eyes for the spider for a cute look.
When I got the pompom done, I connected the sensor with Arduino and my laptop that I could see it works well.
Here is the video of the sensor is working. The graph just showed the change of resistance by pressing it.
Processing data visualization
By programming with processing, I’ve visualized the data with a variable spider web responding to the change of pressure. So when people press its belly, the size of web just changed according to the value of resistance.
Here is the video of the final sensor result.