Project kick-off

This project is going to be a culmination of many interests I've had all year long: thermochromic inks, mobile computing, and bluetooth technology.

Specifically, I am going to design a display system for a dress (which is pre-made, at least for this iteration of the project), whose display is affected by network activity, monitored via a bluetooth connection to my cell phone. The idea is that the cell phone, which maintains constant connection to the net, executes a php script, retreives the data, and then returns it to my garment, which controls the thermochromic display via an arduino.

For those who don't know, thermochromic ink is what Hypercolor was, back in the late 80s (remember those days??). It's ink that changes color with application of heat. Using resistance heating, enough heat is generated from a thread that has current sent down it, to change the color of ink designed to turn at temps above body temperature.

A flow chart, putting those words into a picture, can be seen here.

This is my initial outline for this project:

1. Draw flow diagram, showing how everything is connected

2. Data component
a. figure out how to connect to internet via bluetooth in phone
b. data scrape a site for test data

3. Physical component
a. sew conductive threads into a swatch with ink on it. test different threads for their effectiveness
b. set up circuit that lets me send current down different threads (maybe look at led array that leah buchley made?)

4. Visual component
a. figure out graphic design of print and what I actually want to do with it!
b. silkscreen graphic
c. sew in threads + circuit.