Light & Time Process

For my project, I decided to prototype my Technology Timer idea because it is the most executable and falls in the realm of wearable technology, a topic I would like to explore further in the future.

I started by designing a timer on the bread board. I wanted a series of lights to mark the passage of time in a way that would encourage a user to hurry to finish whatever task they are doing. I designed the LEDs to go off as time ticks down. Please view my code. Below is a prototype of a basic count down timer, timing 10 seconds (1000 milliseconds).

Count down from Tami on Vimeo.

The original prototype was powered by USB, and thus attached to the computer.

Our assignment is to move away from the computer and have our “thing” function on its own. I soldered a 9V battery holdery to a DC adapter in order to make the Arduino battery powered and independent of the computer.

Once I had my Arduino programmed and running without the computer, my next step was to get the LEDs off of the bread board and onto my bracelet. I wire-wrapped each LED and attached it to a digital pin and ground on the Arduino, and then wove the wire “threads” into my bracelet.

Here is my wired bracelet.

…and here is the bracelet lit up. Hooray!

LED Bracelet prototype from Tami on Vimeo.

My next step is to make the mass of wires running from the bracelet to the Arduino more visually appealing (hidden), to contain the Arduino (because it does not work well shoved in a pocket), and to make the LEDs light in a more interesting way.

Here is the bracelet timing 1 minute, with a new feature added to make the end of the time more interesting and noticeable. Please see my code here.

Light and Time Prototype 2 from Tami on Vimeo.