5. E-textiles¶

I never thought I’d be working with electronics¶

Coming from a business background and being a fashion girlie, it’s not exactly what I pictured for myself. But here I am, a week later, leaning into this fascinating world!

Claudia introduced us to how electronics work, how they can be integrated into fashion, and how we can create something unique and alive. It was a whole new language for me, so I’m breaking it down as I understood it:

Power Source: A battery to fuel everything.

Light: The fun part—in our case, an LED or NeoPixel. PS: We’ll discover more possibilities during wearables week!

Switch: To control the flow of power. It could be digital or analog.

Resistor: A superhero keeping our circuit from overheating (and burning the LEDs!).

In electronics, a circuit is a complete circular path that electricity flows through. A simple circuit consists of a current source, conductors, and a load. The term circuit can be used in a general sense to refer to any fixed path that electricity, data, or a signal can travel through.

— TechTarget

I started with the most basic circuit ever—just connecting the positive and negative of the light to the corresponding sides of the battery.

💡Pro tip: Trial and error were my best teachers this week (and maybe a bit of fear about short circuits and accidental fires).

Getting Hands-On with Arduino¶

We played with the Arduino UNO, and the first thing we learned was how to make its tiny built-in LED blink.

void setup() {
  // Initialize the LED pin as an output
  pinMode(LED_BUILTIN, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
  digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, HIGH); // Turn the LED on
  delay(1000);                    // Wait for 1 second
  digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, LOW); // Turn the LED off
  delay(1000);                    // Wait for 1 second
}

After that, we used a breadboard so we can udnerstand how we should connect the circut and integrate the elements.

Circuts has two types, paraller and series.

parallel circuit, components are connected across multiple paths, so the current can flow through each independently. If one path fails, the other paths remain functional. The voltage across each component is the same.

Series Circuits In a series circuit, components are connected end-to-end in a single path. The same current flows through all components, but the voltage divides among them. If one component fails, the entire circuit stops working.

We also were introduced to the velostat! the velostat is a fabric resistor! which we will use when whe embede our circut into the fabric

Then we leveled up:

working with NeoPixels, which are RGB LEDs that can create all kinds of colors and effects.

To use NeoPixels, we had to install a special library in the Arduino software.

Install the Adafruit NeoPixel Library

1. Open the Arduino IDE.

2. Go to Sketch > Include Library > Manage Libraries.

3. In the Library Manager, search for Adafruit NeoPixel.

4. Select the library and click Install.

After that, it was coding time! I decided to try and make the NeoPixels glow blue—simple, but super satisfying.

Option 2: HTML for Markdown¶

If Markdown doesn’t render code blocks properly, you can try HTML:

```html

#include 
#define LED_PIN    6
#define LED_COUNT 7
Adafruit_NeoPixel strip(LED_COUNT, LED_PIN, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);

void setup() {
  strip.begin();
  strip.show();
}

void loop() {
  for (int brightness = 100; brightness <= 255; brightness++) {
    strip.setBrightness(brightness);
    strip.fill(strip.Color(0, 0, 255));
    strip.show();
    delay(10);
  }
  for (int brightness = 255; brightness >= 100; brightness--) {
    strip.setBrightness(brightness);
    strip.fill(strip.Color(0, 0, 255));
    strip.show();
    delay(10);
  }
}

Bringing Textiles to Life¶

The big challenge was combining circuits with textiles to create something alive.

We used conductive thread to replace wires, which meant stitching circuits into fabric. Smaller, stitch-friendly Arduinos like the Gemma were perfect for this. We also integrated velostat as a resistor—it’s flexible and works great for wearable designs. It’s wild to think about how much I’ve learned in just one week. Electronics in fashion felt impossible at first, but now I can’t wait to experiment more with lights, movement, and maybe even sound.

CODE / IMAGES