Steampunk Light Dress Part 1

I first learned to code on a TI-99 when I was around eight years old.  In retrospect, my early experiments were terrible little text-based programs; games mostly.  I developed a cat sim, as well as a text-based adventure that resulted in myriad forms of death one or two turns in (getting out of bed resulted in a thermonuclear explosion, combing your hair resulted in decapitation, opening the dresser unleashed a killed platypus etc.)

We had no printer (in retrospect, I am not certain the TI had one,) and my father could never get the cassette tape drive to function properly, so there was never any way to backup my work.  If I wanted to preserve any code, it had to be hand-written, which it seldom ever was.

Object-oriented programming would come much later.   I didn't learn Java, PHP, or C++ until my later days of college, and had no real use for any of them until I took an internship in tech pubs.  Today, C# has become a second language; a framework I used to build agile, spiffy little SQL-backed tools at my place of employment.

I never really delved into electronics.  I took a class back in high school, and I've wired a light or two to be sure, but as of a year ago, I couldn't tell you the difference between a resistor and a transistor (and may still need a book to provide more than the fundamentals.)  Everything I've done has been cerebral as far as the circuitry is concerned; operating from the semiconductor upwards towards the user.

While I have no plans to become a professional electronic engineer any time soon, I'm a dabbler by nature, and dabblers, by nature, can't stand boundaries.  To help expand my boundaries in the electrical realm (and for her own reasons, explained shortly,) my wife bought me an Arduino Uno for Christmas.

For those of you who don't know what an Arduino is, it's a nifty little open-source board that has been used to prototype all sorts of cool gadgets from smart hoodies to robotic bartenders to tee-shirts that are also keyboards.  Just attach the wires to your various sensors, servos, and other errata, upload some code, and watch it go.

Now, while I've gone through all the tutorials available on both the Arduino website and the Arduino for Dummies handbook, I tend to learn best by playing around and generally doing.  To that end, I've set out two goals I'd like to achieve by the end of the year.

The First: Steampunk Victorian Ballgown

My wife has a variety of Victorian-era clothing.  Where does one wear such things?  You'd be surprised how many Victorian or Steampunk-themed there are out there, especially around Christmas (which, being almost 360 days away, gives me time.) 

Included within this clothing are a few bustle dresses.  My goal is to deck a few of these dresses with a few strands of programmable led's, mostly contained in the lace of her bustle or collar (she'll look a bit like a firefly.)

A Rough Sketch: Each strand of light will consist of one circuits of nine led's; seven of static color and two RGB LED's capable of changing their color (we only have room for four in the sketch, but will tap one on to the end of each string.)  There will be three strands in the bustle and one in the collar.

Design Requirements:

• The device must be programmable.  I want the lights to be able to:
• Sparkle (each light turns off briefly.)
• Go solid (stay on steady)
• Chase
• Fade colors (RGB only.)
• React to sound (pulse and change color with music.)
• The device must be controllable.  As my wife doesn't have a smart phone, my current plan is a potentiometer.  Cycling the settings on the potentiometer will switch functions on the lights (the middle setting will start a loop that fires a randomized function for a randomly determined number of seconds.)
• The sound sensor must be located somewhere away from fabric, lace, or anything else that's noisy.
• The entire affair must weight less than four pounds and be easily removable.
• The lights may need to be obscured so they do not look tacky

Hardware Required:

• Arduino Uno
• Potentiometer
• Sound sensor
• 30 ft wire (transparent preferred)
• Transistor
• 28 static LED's
• 8 RGB LED's
• Resistors for led lights
• Power supply for lights (2v@~800ma req)
• Power supply for Arduino (9v battery)
• Small clips
• Basting thread

The Second:  Self Defense Parasol

The basic idea here is to match the dress with an accessory.  I was thinking of a fan, but that's really too small to do anything with.  As such, I'm planning on outfitting a parasol with two strands of LED and putting a plasma orb (ensconced with brass wire and some insulation to prevent it shattering while she walks about) at the tip.

A Rough Sketch: This one's really just an extension of the first design, with the addition of the plasma tip, which should be operated with a second button.  We'll have to put some care into making sure the plasma tip does not break.

Design Requirements:

• Same as above, PLUS the plasma tip, MINUS the easily removable part (lacy parasols are under $25.)

Hardware Required:

Arduino Uno

Potentiometer

Sound sensor

10 ft wire (transparent preferred)

Transistor

14 static LED's

6 RGB LED's

Resistors for led lights

Power supply for lights (2v@~400ma req)

Power supply for Arduino (9v battery)

Small clips

Basting thread

So we'll see where we go from there.  I imagine that I have quite a few things wrong or simply unconsidered and that the design will evolve considerably along the way, as most good designs do.