tshirt - warning: stretchy shirts can be tricky to sew
Circuit Stickers color LED stickers
conductive thread
CR2032 coin cell battery
LilyPad coin cell switched battery holder 
needle
embroidery hoop
​scrap fabric (not pictured)

4. ​Sew all the letters.  I sewed the "tr" to the positive end of the battery holder and "nics" to the negative end.

​5. Place stickers.  Note that the tips of the LED stickers are negative. 

6. You will need to connect the LED positive ends to the positive end of the battery. Connect the LED negative ends to each other and the negative end of the battery.  To do this without crossing stitches or adding stitches to your design, insert a folded scrap piece of fabric.  

• Connect LED negative ends to the rest of the stitching.

​6. Insert a folded scrap piece of fabric.  One layer will connect positive and the other layer will connect negative.  Be careful that the threads from the different layers do not touch! If they do, the circuit may not work.

7. Test your circuit!  Here are some troubleshooting questions.

• Do your lights flicker?
  • Are your stitches loose?   If so, tighten them.
  • Do threads from positive touch negative?  Can you make sure they don't?
• Can you test one LED at time?
• Are all LEDs connected at positive and negative?

​8. Model your new awesome shirt!

Make a festive decoration that lights up!

Materials:
LED Circuit Stickers
conductive thread
3V coin cell battery
sewable battery holder
felt
non-conductive thread

needle

Place circuit stickers on the felt.

With conductive thread, sew the negative points of the circuit together in a circle.
Sew the positive ends together in a larger circle.

On the back of, sew the positive end of the battery holder to the outside circle (positive).
Sew the negative end of the battery holder to the inside circle (negative).

Test the circuit by inserting the battery.  Your ornament should light up!

Cover the LEDs with another piece of felt and stitch around the edges with non-conductive thread. 

Make a fun wearable!

You will need:
Circuit Stickers
conductive thread
3V coin cell battery
sewable battery holder
headband
black felt
black thread

Cut the black felt into flower shapes.  The large piece was made by overlapping flowers and leaving room for the battery holder.

Place the circuit stickers on the large piece of felt pointing the same direction.  With one piece of conductive thread, sew through the negative sides (grey) of the stickers together.  Connect this thread to the negative side of the battery holder (-).

With a different piece of conductive thread sew the positive sides (red) together.  Connect it to the positive side of the battery holder (+).

Test your circuit by inserting the battery.

Cut holes in the flowers for the light to shine through.  Gather the flowers by sewing with regular black thread to make them pop.

Sew flowers over the LEDs, add a flower over the battery holder.

Here are the flowers lit up.

Position your flowers on your headband.  I like the flowers lined up asymmetrically.

Sew or glue your flowers to the headband.

Wear your creation!

Light up the night with this Halloween trick-or-treat bag!

Materials:
Circuit Stickers
conductive thread
3V coin cell battery
sewable battery holder
canvas bag
orange felt
black thread

This project is based off my Instructables for Halloween decorations.

Place the circuit stickers on the bag.  With conductive thread, sew the negative sides together (top).  Sew the positive sides together (bottom).

With conductive thread sew the battery holder to the inside of the bag, connecting the negative side of the battery holder to the negative side of the stickers (top).

Connect the positive side of the battery to the positive side of the stickers (bottom)

Insert the battery into the holder to test out your circuit.

Sew the pumpkin to the bag with regular felt.  Have a safe Halloween!

Young makers:
4 Paws Wearables: 3D printed light up pet collars
Young woodworking sisters Gabriella (age 10) and Talia (age 7) Arovas make their own toys.
O Watch: DIY smart watch for kids

E-textiles/soft circuits:
Teknikio: cool kits for sewing circuits and origami
Becky Stern is the Director of Wearable Electronics at Adafruit and she always releasing great how-to tutorials and videos.  At Maker Faire she is promoting a new book, Getting Started with Adafruit FLORA [website] [Maker Faire page] Check out Adafruit's #WearableWednesdays on their blog too.
Circuit Sentiments has cool pop-up greeting card kits. [website][Maker Faire page]

Education:
This month, I started as a postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Engineering Education and Outreach at Tufts University.  My group will be presenting a talk called Makerspaces as Education Research Subjects [website], on Sunday 9/28 3:30-4 PM at the Make: Education stage. 

There are a lot of awesome makers this year at Seattle Mini Maker Faire, held at the EMP September 19-20. Here are some of my favorites!

Pop-Up Science: Seattle’s first and only pop-up museum dedicated to science, technology, and creativity. Pop-Up Science partners with bitwise E-textiles by offering sewable circuits workshops.

Big Brained Superheroes Club: Bringing STEAM to underserved kids in Seattle with real-life superpowers.  

ReMake it Station: Led by SecondUse, who have been reclaiming building materials for reuse in the Puget Sound region since 1994. 

Evergreen School Makerspace: Evergreen is building a makerspace in a school and sharing along the way. Check out this post, The Makings of A Makerspace. 

Rainworks: Make art with rain!  Positive messages appear when it rains.

Play Works Studio: STEM games with storytelling for girls and boys.

This project is based off my LED cuff bracelet Instructables, this time using a circuit sticker.

Materials:
Circuit Sticker
conductive thread
3V coin cell battery
sewable battery holder
felt
snaps
non-conductive thread or embroidery floss
needle

Place the circuit sticker on the felt.  Make sure the negative end (-) points to the negative end of the battery holder (slot). Sew down the snap to the positive (+) end of the circuit sticker and break thread.
Sew the negative end of the circuit sticker to the negative end of the battery holder and break thread.
Sew the positive end of the battery holder to the snap.

Insert battery and connect the ends of the bracelet together.  It should light up!

Decorate using non-conductive thread.

I backed Circuit Stickers by Chibitronics last year when it was crowd funded, but I haven't had the chance to try them out. I decided to make a birthday card where the candle on a cupcake lights up with an LED.

Doing your own Circuit Stickers project?  I'm sure they would love to hear from you!
@chibitronics on Twitter
chibitronics on Facebook
Read an interview with Jie Qi, the founder of Chibitronics.

#summerofawesome #circuitstickers

I’ve seen some cool best of Bay Area Maker Faire posts (list, slideshow).  Here is a recap of my favorites:

Jie Qi gave a fabulous talk on paper circuits and all of her work is beautiful.  Her talk was so good that the sound guy said it was the best talk of the two days he was working.  Check out her pop-up book and and interactive LED painting.  

Shaper is a self-aligning, hand-held CNC router. It uses tape printed with dominos laid on the work pieces to locate itself.  It can do fine alignment when you are close to the shape you want.  Awesome if you want to do some cutting but don’t have any room for a large router.  They said it would retail around $1-2k.

Remember Bop It? (Bop it!  Pull it!  Twist it!)  There was a large person-size one that shot fire for the different motions.  Bop it was a pedal, pull it was a rope, twist it was a bike wheel.  It was super cool. My high score was 6.  :)

I enjoyed all things Maker Ed.  Went to a talk by teachers of High Tech Middle, who talked about inquiry-based learning in the classroom.  Also attended a talk by Samantha Cook of Curiosity Hacked, who talked about learner-centered education (check out this article about how she is hacking education).  Missed AnnMarie Thomas’s talk on making makers, but ran into her later (check out her Squishy Circuits).

See you at NY Maker Faire in the fall!

#makerfaire2015 #makerfaire #bayareamakerfaire #makered