This project brings me so much excitement, and I'm so happy to share it with you alll!!
As an undergrad in engineering, it feels like we are pushed to focus on the technicalities of things so much so that there isn't much space for creative expression. However, to my surprise, my final project in my Wearable Bioinstrumentation class was fully open-ended. The only requirement was having an inputted biosignal that was outputted in whatever form we wanted.
Thankfully, one of my closest friends, Leah, is also taking the class with me, so we decided to work together and combine our creative interests to create this dress. The poster below describes the project. Essentially, a pulse sensor is integrated into the glove and maintains contact with the user's index finger. The sensor uses photoplethysmography (PPG) technology to get a heart rate. We hardwired it to a microcontroller that is inside a pocket in the back of the dress and is battery controlled for wearability. Our code guides the LED light to change color according to the user's heart rate. It gradients from green to red to indicate if one's heart rate is elevated. Fiber optic cables were attached to the LED to better visualize the lights. The entire dress was made from a thrifted XL dress that we bought for $0.60. The gloves were hand sewn because the material kept snagging on the sewing machine.
Below is a video of the final product. In the second clip, you can see there is another LED on the microcontroller that beats to the user's heart rate. The wiring looks a bit messy because it is pulled out, but it can be hidden by tucking it into the pocket inside the dress. In the future, we plan to use conductive thread to minimize the amount of wires needed; however since this was more of a prototype with a 4 week rush to the finish line, we couldn't refine it as perfectly as we wanted.
Leah and I are going to continue creating more iterations of the dress over the summer. My friend is a professional photographer, so he saw my post on IG and offered to take pictures of it! We also hope to get a dress in the fashion show next year, if possible.
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