Motion Controlled Wearable LED Dance Harness

Contributors: bboyho

Making It Better

There’s always room for improvement. I was only able to include the option for sensor control from the last time due to time constraints. I would probably explore additional upgrades and improvements on top of the initial list.

• Once Sided Circuit -- It was difficult working with the circuit on two sides of the prototyping board. While it was condensed, reworking parts of the board and wiring the circuit was tedious.
• Printed Circuit Board -- Stripping and soldering wires seemed pretty tedious. Designing and printing circuit boards would be faster if I decide to continue building the motion controller.
• Calibration Methods -- The 6-point calibration process seemed tedious. While it was interesting to view the data and differences between accelerometers, using a different calibration method and automating the process would have been better.
• Combining the Accelerometer with a Gyro -- While the accelerometer is good at determining the object's orientation when static, the reading was a bit noisy when the dancer was moving. I'd probably add a gyro to measure rotation to work with the accelerometer. Using both sensors combined make a inertial measurement unit (IMU) and should interpret the data better.
• Using Different Sensors -- Instead of using an accelerometer as the sensor, it would be neat to try a sound detector to trigger on beat.

For Mark IV and Mark V, I was able to explore some the following options.

• Expanding to the Legs and Arms -- Only the body was lit up. However, the arms and legs could use some lights. It would be cool to extend the LEDs on the arms and legs. This was actually easier to do in Mark IV using EL Wire.
• Wireless Control -- Using some XBees, it would be cool to wirelessly toggle between users or sensor control. This was explored in the Mark IV build.
• Combining EL with LEDs -- It was not until mark Mark V that I was able to add this feature.