SparkFun Goes to Costume Con!
We participated in the annual Costume Con in Denver recently, and taught an e-textiles workshop!
SparkFun recently had the opportunity to attend the 31st annual Costume Convention in Denver, Colo. It was a great opportunity to meet with a new audience and see some awesome applications of e-textiles and embedded electronics.
This was one awesome robot costume on display. Sadly, I couldn't get in touch with the creator to find out what specific electronics were used in it.
Over the four days of the conference, we had the opportunity to work with many people in the costuming community and discuss current projects being worked on, as well as other ideas people had brewing in the back of their minds!
The artwork and hand-crafting that went in to many of the projects was incredibly inspiring. The Pip Boy above was a great application of EL panels and looked fantastic!
We also had the opportunity to hold a workshop called Sewing with Electronics. We had over 50 attendees come and learn how to sew with conductive thread and work with the LilyPad LEDs and battery packs.
My favorite part of the conference was seeing people come back after the first day and discuss how many new ideas they were dreaming up after finding out about e-textiles.
Some participants didn't waste any time using the skills they picked up in the workshop to start hacking away with new costume ideas.
Overall, Costume Con was a great success and we are looking into additional conferences we may be able to attend.
For more information on the Denver Costume Con and other related conventions, please check out their site here. To see some additional pictures from the Con, check out the Flickr channel here.
