Say you don’t have the dough to purchase Epson’s new Google Glass opponent or Under Armour’s willPOWER tracker, but you still want to ride the wearable wave of 2014. ou might be able to save some cash and still project that techie vibe by building your own motion-activated LED wristband, available from adafruit.
The 3D Printed Flora Band is a DIY project that promises to be a fun-to-build means of keeping you safe while exercising at night. The motion-activated wristband incorporates a ring of LED lights and an accelerometer to create a series of lights that flash when you’re jogging, biking or parkouring around the dark streets of your neighborhood. That way, you can maintain your visibility, while you’re out making your visibility look good. The Flora board and accompanying components are held together in a 3D printed watchband. The adafruit team uses NinjaFlex to create something that won’t chafe your wrists. You can see a video of the Flora Band in use (followed by instructions on how to assemble it) below:
The Flora Band utilizes the Flora circuit board, the heart of adafruit’s wearable electronics platform. What makes Flora perfect for such sewable designs is its diminutive size, 14 sewing tap pads, lack of FTDI headers that can tear fabric, USB support and protected power supply. The Flora Band isn’t the only adafruit project to use the Flora platform. The video below gives a list of some of the other uses that Flora has, including an LED tie and a plush NES controller.
As soon as I figure out how to solder, I’m thinking about making some Firewalk LED Sneakers to go with a 3D printed Flora Band. It’ll make me extra safe when avoiding night traffic and extra unsafe when avoiding nerd-hating bullies.
Source: adafruit
