Progress...

After a discussion with Michelle and bringing up the ideas of LDR's (Light determined resisters) we soon reached the idea of dresses which communicate. Michelle was very keen on the idea as it added more meaning to her collection, We were pleased as it added a little more taste to the project. The fact that each dress will determine what the other will appear like is something very unique and is much more creative than just writing a specific set of instructions of on, off for the LED's.

Further Development for lighting, We now have the ability to control fading through the marvels of PWM! A lovely function offered by the arduino, using RGB leds we can use PWM to merge red, green and blue into any colour thanks to the way our eyes work, it does not really create a new colour but quickly turns on and off the 3 colours. Our eyes continue to see colour after it has disappeared through the phenomena of Persistence of vision, and thus creates the illusion of making a different colour.

Above shows the LED cube that Myles spent a whole lot of time soldering performing a neat little set that was found on the internet. The cube is under a piece of material which shows examples of shadow which adds so much to the aesthetics.

Above Myles explains how the Arduino powers the Flexinol. This became a problem as we couldn't get the flexinol to activate by using the Arduino, the Arduino is powered by 5 Volts which should be an enough to make the Flexinol move. This wasn't the case, the power that the arduino puts out is almost like a pulse, its not a certain current. Meaning the power needs to build up then be sent through the Flexinol. It worked once this problem was solved, it means that we will need to use a greater power source as we will be using a lot more Flexinol than shown in the video. To use an external power source we are using transistors, the arduino now will instead of power the entire circuit will just signal to the transistors to turn on their separate circuits involving a 9volt battery power source. The other possible method is to use a relay, but we have been advised that this a slightly more complicated task so have stuck with transistors - however here we see Sarah Layne has used a relay (semi) successfully

The above video shows the controllability the arduino offers to allow us to create different sequences with the LEDs which is a key factor for Michelles dress.

This is some of our first tests using very light material and small amounts of Flexinol. We use the oven as the source of heat as it much less fidly in comparison to setting up circuits to run a current through the wires to heat them up. The end result is good an as we hoped, the coiled piece of Flexinol returns to its new shape and folds the petal in the process.