Make: Online : Open Heart brooch

Open Heart brooch

Today I combined Jimmie Rogers' Open Heart kit with a LilyPad Arduino board to make a light-up, animating LED heart brooch. I used conductive thread to attach the two together like a sandwich, and put a safety pin on the power supply. I dangled the brooch from the power supply with embroidery floss and the power/ground wires. The programming pins are still easily accessible for changing the animations. Oh, I also made an instructable for putting together your own.
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Posted by: Anonymous on October 29, 2008 at 6:38 PM

It would be interesting if you hook up a lilypad arduino to some sort of biometric reader which can detect your pulse. Then, you could program the open heart kit to flash with the beating of your heart.

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Posted by: Becky Stern on October 29, 2008 at 8:28 PM

@Anonymous: yes! excellent idea!

@Ben: It was a limited edition Parsons Design & Technology shirt from undergrad. We made one every year, but there aren't any more of this one, sorry. My favorite one is "word to your motherboard."

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Posted by: Gareth Branwyn on October 29, 2008 at 8:33 PM

Cool project, Becky!

Re: T-shirt
I assume the first crossed-out phrase was: "sex, drugs & rock and roll." What was the first word in the second phrase? Please tell me the designer did the right thing and kept sex :-)

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Posted by: Becky Stern on October 29, 2008 at 8:38 PM

The first line is "sex, drugs, & rock and roll" with just "drugs & rock and roll" struck out, and the second line is just "design & technology" which was the name of the department. So yes, Gar. =]

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Posted by: ben on October 29, 2008 at 9:05 PM

shirt

i'm more interested in her shirt! anyone know where one could acquire such a shirt?

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Posted by: Patti Schiendelman on October 29, 2008 at 9:30 PM

Someone needs to make "Is that an arduino in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" shirt.

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Posted by: JacqueChadall on October 30, 2008 at 3:27 AM

All these comments and no one's mentioned how hot Becky is? I'm surprised the solder was able to hold together ;-D!!!!

--JacqueChadall

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Posted by: Joebob on October 30, 2008 at 11:46 AM

Becky sure has my heart thumping!

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