Inspiration
To get started on the project, I was thinking if there is any object that I usually used. I started to look for any object that is used without the contact of my hands. The solution is my hat. Since the hat is the point of contact with the head and not with the hands, I decided to make a circuit around my hat. Therefore, as I wear my hat, the light will turn on.
Concept
The hat switch uses the a simple circuit with the Arduino board, an LED light, a resistor, some aluminum foils along with battery to attach them on the hat. Below is the schematic of the circuit:
Below is the actual circuit after everything is connected:
implementation
Firstly, I connected the circuit together with the male-to-female wires so that I do not need to use the bread board. After making sure that everything is working properly, I start to attach the aluminum foils to the wires to increase the surface area of contact for the switch. Lastly, I attach everything to my head such that the aluminum foils are placed inside the hat and only come to contact if someone wears it. Below is the actual visualization of how the final product looks like:
Challenges
It was quite difficult to figuring out how I can attach the breadboard (which also along with the batteries and the Arduino board) to the hat. However, after I look around the IM labs “Consumables” to see what type of material they have, I noticed the different wires that can be connected together without the breadboard.
Reflection
It was a fun assignment that I have to think about the daily action that I could have done differently. Also, I also explore the possible resources that I have in the IM labs in the “Consumables” section.
What I want to improve on is how I can design the hat to be more aesthetic. The current version only have tapes and wires that can clearly be seen at the first glance. I would love to know how I can hide the wires for better design.