So the class is over and the I demonstrated the prototype of the final design Wednesday. I wasn’t sure I could pull it off, but low and behold it all came together perfectly, including the last minute shuddering due to damage that occurred en route.  Overall I’m pleased with the final design.  The conductive thread turned out to be trickier than I anticipated, despite al the blog warnings about how finicky it could be.  I often times think I am the exception to this rule and am unpleasantly surprised to discover that I’m not.  The image to the left is me on Demo night with the final version of the shirt, which I’ll go into more detail later.

I have some detailed photos of my Fit Shirt to review some of the details with you. The like I mentioned sewing the conductive thread was the most challenging aspect of this project once I figured out the accelerometer was a little too ambitious for my original idea.  Some things to consider when sewing a shirt is that the thread can’t touch at all.  This can be tricky when connecting multiple LED’s to one pin hole on the Flora board, as well as when planning where to sew down sleeves as the shirt can short out if they touch each other when the user bends the shirt at any important seams like armpits and elbows.

I learned some important lessons during this project and sewing that seem obvious now, but were not so intuitive at the time.  I was extremely excited to start sewing and probably did not spend as much time mapping out the entire project as was needed to avoid the following issues.  Sewing the LEDs was extremely problematic for me.

I chose to use two different colored LED Sequins in order to distinguish between the two heart rate zones instead of using one set of LEDs that could change to different colors.  I did this for three reasons.  The first reason was I wanted to play with the LED sequins. The second was that I thought they would be smaller, lighter, and better suited for a shirt physical activity.  The third reason is I thought they would be less complicated to work with due to the lack of programming.  While this was true, it added a level of complexity to the sewing that, again, I didn’t anticipate.

It took three sewing attempts to get all of the LEDs working properly.  The first time I sewed all the components together in one long string, and discovered when I connected everything that one of the LED sequins was broken and had to rip the entire project apart and start over.  The second time I got the LEDs facing the wrong direction so the grounding thread had to be sewn across the back of the arm over the elbow.  The third time I decided to sew the LEDs in sections to compartmentalize the components in case there were issues in the future.

The LED’s are one section and the thread that connects them to the Flora are another section and either of these can be replaced without having to completely restitch the entire shirt again.  The third time was the charm.

Once all the LED’s were working properly, I connected the battery so it could be autonomous. I chose to go with the coin batteries instead of the Lithium ion batteries strictly due to the weight factor.  There were two small holes in the back of the battery case that I stitched the conductive thread to to hold it in place and tied a very simple knot.

So now the short was working and I decided I wanted a more elegant look for the connection of the Pulse Sensor.  It was still connected by the alligator clips.  I connected the pulse sensor to some wires with female ends and used some stripped wires to create my own version of “hooks”  I then stitched some fairly tight loops for the hooks to loop through and maintain a tight enough connection to be consistent.  Unfortunately this idea was great, but the connection was not as stable as I would have liked for the Demo Night and continued to be unreliable all evening.  I will have to work on this and come up with a better idea, which may include permanently connecting the  Pulse Sensor to the Flora.

Overall, this was an incredibly fun project to to work on.  It was incredibly rewarding to be exposed to the “maker” world.  I don’t hunk I would have taken the initiative or had the courage to try tinkering with this on my own.   Having the opportunity to explore this aspect of prototyping in an academic setting was idea for me, as the instructor and TAs were incredibly helpful and encouraging.

I think this may be my favorite class in HCDE so far.  I found it mentally stimulating to problem solve and actually create a working prototype from the seed of an idea.  I discovered I don’t like to code a lot, at least not in the traditional sense.  However, this project was a fun way to apply my programming skills, and I could definitely envision myself becoming a novice maker/tinkerer.   I would definitely like to continue working the Fit Shirt and develop the prototype further.  I may explore this idea for my capstone project next year and see If I can incorporate some of Sean Munson’s research into the project for wellness and fitness tracking.

As far as my contribution to the class, I don’t know that I was very helpful.  I did try to show an interest in others’ projects and share my relatively limited experience and help with components that I was working with.  I learned a ton from my peers, and the biggest lesson was to have fun with the project and not get so frustrated or

I find wearables fun, and am definitely going to continue working with them in the future!  Stay tuned for Fit Shirt 2.0, who knows this could turn into a Kickstarter campaign.