Open Heart LilyPad Arduino Brooch

Assemble your Open Heart according to the instructions on its website. Make some fancy animations using Jimmie's easy Flash program that generates the Arduino code you need. No programming experience required!

Cut out two pieces of scrap fabric (I used ultrasuede because it's thick without being too fuzzy) and sandwich them between the heart and the LilyPad. They help insulate the various conductive materials involved.

With the heart and Arduino back to back, figure out which pins on the heart line up with which pins on the arduino, and write them down. You'll need to plug those into Jimmie's code generator when you program the board.

Sew those same pins together, hiding the knots between the two fabric layers so they don't flop around and short out your board.

Because I chose to dangle my heart from the power source, I needed to make the positive power lead be on one side of the board and the negative be on the other. To do this, I first tried using conductive thread, but had a short I couldn't find, so I decided to redo it with just a little bit of insulated stranded wire. Solder a small piece from the + on the LIlyPad across the board to one of the analog inputs.

I used two more pieces of stranded wire to make the dangly connections between the battery board and the main board. I had to bridge the + on the battery board over to one of the unused pins on the opposite end of the battery holder to keep the dangly wire supports symmetrical. I used conductive thread for this; you can see it on the back of the battery board.

I used hot glue, and we'll see how long it holds, but you should really use epoxy to attach a pinback or, in my case, safety pin to the back of the battery holder. Make sure it's not touching any of the metal or conductive parts on the battery holder, or insulate those with more hot glue or epoxy. Use a little bit of embroidery floss to stabilize the top end of the dangly part, as shown in the picture.Pin it on, and you're done!

With this configuration, you have access to the programming pins on the LilyPad to change the animations any time you like.