Plant Shirt by Andy Uehara
Years ago, I thought we would have t-shirts that change. For a while there were thermal t-shirts, and I thought that they would become the norm. Unfortunately, t-shirts that change are still not very common. So I would make a t-shirt that would change.
The t-shirt is a plant that grows out of the ground depending on how dark it is. Originally, I wanted the plant to grow towards the light. Later, I realized that an LED plant would be hard to see in the sunlight, so I reversed the direction the plant would grow.
My plan is to buy a bunch of LEDs, two photo resistors, some conductive thread, and conductive epoxy for the electrical components. For the material I am considering using an old t-shirt and some semi-transparent gauze. I want to get the gauze for two reasons. First, I need colored gauze to act as a color stain to produce non-standard LED colors like brown. Second, I am toying with the idea of sewing little pockets around the LEDs to help diffuse the light and get more organic lit shapes instead of LED points of light.
Here is my concept picture:
I am concerned about producing something that is washable, comfortable, and durable. I might have to explore building a LED array since the Arduino may not have enough pins for the LEDs.