NIKNA

Some inspiration links I found

Niko — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:54:37 +0000

Some sites i found relevant or just otherwise interesting:

SensorWiki.org (Good overview of different sensors available, and what they are for)
Pachube (Store, share & discover realtime sensor, energy and environment data from objects, devices & buildings around the world. I might utilize this for my project 2)
Liquidware.com (Advanced components to buy, displays etc.)
Funnel.cc (nice alternative for Arduino, if your more comfortable with actionscript)
iButton (Great small button to integrate into your garments for access control, attendance etc.)
Nintendo nunchuck (I will definately try this for my project 3, cheap and relatively easy way to get 3-way accelerometer sensors with extra buttons)
Mobile processing (Processing.org for mobiles with java, great for portable solutions)
Bluetooth mate with LilyPad (Wireless connection solution for LilyPad)
Interfacing with Arduino (Important libraries for for different input/output purposes)

Concept idea: Air quality

Niko — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 07:33:42 +0000

For THE LIGHT FANTASTIC task I though maybe it would be nice to make a wearable that measures current local air quality simply visualizes it with led color. For this I would need some biometrical sensors, to measure e.g. Methan e (CH4), Carbon Monoxide (CO) or small dust particles. Then either few different color leds, or simply one multipurpose RGB led to present different air quality conditions. How it would be implemented to garment, I’m not sure yet, but I’m imaging a bag which outer surface signals air quality level to others.

To think about it even further, would be nice to also add a gps sensor plus storage space memory to log all that data by location and time and later pull out nice graphs about air quality over time and place. Instead of cities having few key measuring stations, crowd of people could measure air quality around the city within their normal activities and thus provide really comprehensive data sets for further analysis of air quality.

Sparkfun is currently providing few different biometrical sensors with reasonable prize. Gps sensors though are still quite expensive for prototyping use. The overall costs with simplest implementation would be reasonable and should also fit to Lilypad’s architecture.

Wearable Technology course blog

Niko — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 08:28:25 +0000

I’m having my exchange at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand and this will be my online blog for course: “Wearable Technology”. I will publish learning outcomes, concept ideas and inspirations related to electronics & wearable technology. On this course we will mostly experiment with Arduino Lilypad and different types of sensors.