Sculptural Modular LED Jewellery - Made With Cheap Everyday Materials

This instructable documents a prototyping process to make a really complex piece of programmable interactive modular jewellery. However, the initial prototyping process was really simple and fun and used readily available materials that were kicking about the studio! The plastic molecular structure on the first image and in the sketches is what's is in this instructable.

The final piece was for polymath musician Imogen Heap to visualise her MiMU gloves. The aesthetic is inspired by interconnectedness, blockchain and her company Mycelia. It's a collaboration between Melissa Coleman, Rachel Freire, Rebecca Odedra and Joachim Rotteveel. This aesthetic is just one of many potential looks: it was made to be swapped out and replaced.

Joa and Rebecca made the beautiful metalwork jewellery frame, set with glistening Swarovski and fully programmable LEDs. Melissa designed elegant delicate-yet-strong eTextile copper circuits and coded the light. Everyone worked together to stitch a million complex pieces into one wearable piece of art which could go on tour. I did the concept designs and made the quick-release harness to make it wearable and to hold microcontrollers, mic packs, batteries etc. Adam Stark from MiMU gloves made the system talk to Glover software so Imogen could control the light live on stage. Emma Houston was involved in keeping it all running smoothly. That's a lot of work for a lot of people.

However. I recently came across these pictures while reviewing our documentation... And the drama of it all, the zoomed out theatricality [in the cover image]... is DIY-able AF!

And unless you have an insane controller you want to sync to do very refined, specific things, you can absolutely make this for 10-20£/$/€ [maybe less]

I love process photos and very much enjoy this early part of the design process. To make something so complicated, you need physical, rapid prototyping to actually design the final thing. Also I recommend wine and good company [which we totally had]

This instructable shows annotated process photos and how we used simple objects to plan and prototype our final design. The last step shows some finished images of the final piece.

I hope that sharing this can be inspiration for dramatico, voluminous, theatrical design ideas for wearables. And show how simply you can kick off a complex process with a bunch of stuff you have hanging around, literally forage from bins, and [in my case] some stuff you blag from your local juice bar!

I studied theatre. No budget/recycled/upcycled/blagged is a secret superpower.

materials:

1. transparent or semi-transparent plastic straws [or any tubing which does not bend, is easy to cut and the LEDs fit through]
2. clear plastic beads [from a pound/dollar store or hair supply shop - mine were salvaged from the bins outside my studio - which is my fave place to shop]
3. string, strong thread or fishing line
4. micro LED strings [battery powered with tiny pinpoint lights glued to thin wire]
5. craft wire for the base structure

Each item can be found for ~1-3 £/€/$

Total cost: 10-20 £/€/$

My cost: £6.95 [the highest cost item was £3.95 for the 3m programmable LEDs, which were just kicking about my studio, so not technically purchased for this project, and £3 for clear plastic straws]

tools:

1. scissors
2. glue [preferably quick drying, like super glue gel]
3. tape or metal foil [it has to be opaque - and preferably metallic so it reflects light]
4. needle nose pliers
5. wire cutters [fabric nerd says don't destroy your scissors please!]

First we rummaged together anything clear/white/transparent tube/bead/metallic-ish, some micro LED lights and fishing line to string it all together. Almost everything was white or metallic, no colours. Everything wanted to be architectural and neutral, the only colour would be from the light. Melissa had some copper tubes, and I had some hair beads. The only thing missing was clear straws.

We started by randomly stringing together fishing line and white plastic straws [so there was no strain on the LEDs] and the light shone through, which looked kinda cool! It was bright in the studio, so a bunch of time was spent crouched behind the table to see the lights better.

Deciding the lengths of the straws came first as that changes the scale a lot.

I started out just using the whole straw [minus the bendy bit] to see how the LEDs looked inside the straws and at the junctions. It looked really cool, but the scale was probably a bit unwieldy to wear on stage.

So we measured between the lights and cut the straws to that length, so each light would be at a junction. The straws were then threaded with a light between each one.

The straws were from the pound shop and had annoying faint green stripes, which offended me. I became obsessed with finding plain white or clear straws, which apparently is impossible in Dalston. I don't do amazon, I don't know how to shop... We needed them now.

The clear straws I couldn't actually find to buy... so I badgered my local juice bar, pointing out that I'd never ever taken a plastic straw from them [because I hate throwaway plastic] and so could I please have/purchase X years worth of straws for a worthy cause: to make an art?! They were initially quite resistant, i think offended because they're all 'organic' and 'bio' and stuff. But eventually the gave in, so I would go away. I bought the rest of their box for £3. Next time I bought juice they had paper straws, so I think that's also a RESULT! ;)

Game on

The most important thing about designing with light is that you need to see the thing lit as quickly as possible, because it looks so different. So we used those tiny cheap micro LEDs that seem to always be kicking about somewhere. I had some programmable ones, so we could also play with speed settings and see basic animation.

We used sticky copper electronics tape to cover one half of the beads so we could direct the light. The tape needed to block - and reflect - the light, so copper tape was the best choice. Silver foil would have been prettier but it would have taken longer and we didn't wanna use glue! We didn't use this method in the final design, but this prototyping made us understand how best to design for directional light. This process meant we could test how it would look really quickly.

Our final design required diffusion, because the lights would need to be much bigger and more powerful to be visible on stage. So we had to imagine things bigger and brighter as we played about.

We played around with two different aesthetics:

1. Clear plastic straws, so the lights shone through. The straws were large enough that the LEDs fitted though the tubes. Super quick.
2. Copper tubing: more like jewellery - much thinner tubes. The lights wouldn't fit through so the copper was connected with fishing line. The lights were all on the outside, placed at the junctions.

Then we combined the two. Our final design became a hybrid of these two experiments.

The final design became a hybrid of the two aesthetics in the images: clear, chunky, transparent diffusion + slimmer, solid copper structure. I guess that means our experiment was a success!

Our final design had a soldered metal 'jewellery' base which sat on the shoulders and branched out at the top, All the complex programmable electronics were in there and the LEDs were soldered externally.

The clear construction [no electronics] went on top and could be styled and changed to go with Imogen's outfit. The clear part could now be completely swapped out for a different piece, changing the aesthetic.

These pictures show the initial structure we used to design the jewellery base. It perches on the shoulders, like an oversized necklace. This can be done simply by twisting up craft wire and making sure there's no sharp edges. Or soldered, as we did, if that's your jam.

Then, the light, transparent plastic pieces can be styled over the top. Super easy to wear if you just have a battery pack in your pocket. The whole thing is physically light [as in weightless] so it's a really fun and quick way to make a dramatic costume.

And for us, separating the electronics meant the base was more stable [because we had sooo much tech to contend with - diagram below]. Now those styled parts could be swapped out, re-styled and remade by other contributing artists... with other light-friendly materials, upcycled, foraged or happened upon. There's a cool example [pic 4 below] with twisting wires, which I love. If you google 'Imogen Heap US Myclia tour', you'll likely find some more pictures!