Update on my fancy Light-up Shoes

I've been modifying my light-up shoes and now they're extra-awesome.

I got some new velostat, which works a treat.  The velostat is a pressure sensitive material which basically gets turned into a sensor, so the shoes light up when I step down, instead of just being on all the time.  Yay for interactive stuff!!

I have to say, interactivity is my favorite thing about learning all this arduino voodoo.  I have made loads of web pages and done plenty of online imaging and making-of-pretty-things that appear on my computer screen in the "virtual world".  I've also made plenty of fashion and clothing from drawings or patterns in the "real world".  The thing that's floating my boat about arduino is the connection between the two.. I make a computer program and it changes something in the real world instead of just on-screen.  This, is magic.  

I can't wait to start adding accelerometers and motion sensors and stuff to my clothing.  I also want to make stuff that's remote controllable like my fairy lights.  The learning curve is pretty steep, but I'm finding myself in that exciting phase of discovery where every project opens up a whole new world and things are actually starting to make sense, instead of just respond when I poke at them.  I've got a very long way to go, but I'm having an absolute blast along the way.

So!  Here are my light-up shoes in new-and-improved action.  I used the firewalker code from Adafruit, and tweaked it so it works with the gemma chip I'm using.  I also figured out how to slow it way down - the code is written for a series of around 50 LEDs and I'm just using 5, so the animation went by too fast on the 5 LEDs.  I also tweaked the color a whole lot, but then ended up just changing it back to the original red-yellow-black-with-sparklies because, well, it's AWESOME.

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Light-up Shoes for Grown-ups. Well, for me anyway.

I have always wanted a pair of light-up shoes.  All the kids are wearing them.  They can stomp and their shoes light up with red or blue or sparkly and I've always been SO JEALOUS.

Tonight, I finished my very first set of light-up shoes.  I never, EVER want to take them off.  Yes, I am standing here, writing this, in light-up shoes.

It's very hard to photograph the outside of your own ankles.

I was inspired by this Firewalker Shoes Tutorial from Adafruit.  If you haven't ever poked around Adafruit, I highly recommend it - they have lots of light-up wearables tutorials and inspiration.  I want one of EVERYTHING.  

I don't like the Vans/Converse look so much so I decided to use a comfy pair of boots I had in the garage.  They are pretty cute and steampunk-y with buttons up the sides, but one of the buttons had come off and they'd been migrating to the back of the shoe closet.  I have a feeling they're never going to get forgotten about again.

I removed all the buttons and wired up 5 of Adafruit's neo-pixels to a brand-new Gemma.  This is the first time I'd used a Gemma, but I have a little experience with the neopixels thanks to my light-up unicorn horn project.  (What?  I haven't blogged about the light-up unicorn horn yet???  Here's a pic:

Rainbow Unicorn FTW!

I promise to go into detail about this project at some point.. maybe after the Halloween madness dies down)

I sewed the neopixels into the holes where the buttons had been, and sewed clear iridescent buttons onto the outside, and buttoned the shoes back up.  The iridescent buttons catch and diffuse the light from the neopixels and look just gorgeous.  They run off 3 AAA batteries, and the battery pack just slips nicely down inside the boots - I don't even notice it.

I originally wanted to add a velostat pad under the heel so the lights would react when I stepped down, like in the Firewalker tutorial, but the velostat I got was part of a bad batch and didn't work right.  I've ordered some more and will probably add this functionality in later on.

Regardless, I am absolutely DELIGHTED with how they turned out.  The Gemma uses a simplified (?) form of Arduino, and between the unicorn horn and this project, I'm starting to figure out how to tweak the code to get the lights to do cool things.  Each project is a little more exciting and a little fancier.

You know where this is all leading, right?  There will be a light-up swimming mermaid tail sometime in the not-too-distant future.  Oh, yes there will.

Video, which I couldn't embed for some reason, of the pretty lights

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