Final Project: What I built and how it works

For my final project, I decided to make a pair of light up sneakers from electronic scratch. When I looked up how to make your own light up sneakers, I got a lot of methods. Most of them "cheated" a bit by taking the electronic components from a pair of kid's sneakers and putting them into another pair of adult sneakers. I finally found a couple of different instructions for making your own light up sneakers from scratch, which I combined to make my own plan for the sneakers. I took different things from each set of instructions:

I took the build your own tilt sensor concept from this video

I took the general circuit schematic from this instructables

and I took other information from tilt-switch tutorials and light up shoe designs.

I found an old beat up pair of Converse in my closet over Thanksgiving break, which I brought back to use for my project to save money and to not ruin a new pair of shoes. I built a circuit with a 6V battery source, 3 LEDs, a tilt switch, and an on/off switch.

I then cut out the sole underneath the heel of the shoe to make space to where I was going to put the battery, tilt switch, and wires. I also cut three holes through the shoe on the side facing outwards to put the LEDs through and cut rectangle through the shoe on the side of the heel facing inwards to put the on/off switch through.

I wired the LEDs once they were inserted into the shoe and soldered them inside the shoe. I then did the same with the on/off switch and then wired by battery and tilt switch to the circuit and fit them into the hollowed out heel. I sealed everything into and filled heel with hot glue. Then I put a shoe insert inside of it to make it more comfortable for walking in.

I did the same for the other shoe once I finished and tested the first shoe. I had used a LED pattern of: yellow, red, yellow for the first shoe, so I did: yellow, green, yellow for the second.

shoe and schematic

inside and switch

Sides of shoes

My light up shoes!

Final Project Idea and Snowpocalypse!

I set out to make a pair of light up sneakers from scratch (the electronic part, that is...) for my final project. I could have picked something a bit more ambitious, but after my bubble machine didn't work I wanted to make something from scratch that was more guaranteed to actually work.

My project didn't really suffer too much from the unusual circumstances of the extra Snowpocalypse vacation and other missed class times. I got to a later start on my project because of the days missed but it ended up not setting me back by enough to interfere with the completion of my project.

First Project: Bubble Machine

For my first project, I chose to make a bubble machine like one that I found instructions to make online. In the example, they used an audio cassette player to motorize the bubble wands and attached a small CPU fan to its side to blow the bubbles. They recommended setting it over a large container for it to dip the wands into bubble solution.

I basically made the same bubble machine except that I attached the fan to the cassette player so that both worked on the same switch (the play button). I also made my own solution container out of plastic to fit the machine and to hold it in place so that I could have a whole portable bubble machine.

This was my first electronics project, so I learned all of what I needed to do to make it work. I learned about/ how to use a relay and I learned very quickly that it was harder than I expected to hack an electronic product and make everything work the way I wanted it to. In the end, the electronic component of my project was simple to get working, but the mechanical components were more difficult to deal with. I had some trouble getting the bubbles to actually blow because initially, the tape player motor speed was still too fast for the wands to catch enough air from the fan. I put a rubber band between the heads of the tape player to create some resistance, but it's still not quite working. I'll have to tinker with it a bit!

Next time, I would probably try to make my bubble machine more from scratch. I'd try to use a separate motor that wasn't part of another device, so that it would be easier to control. I might also try to control the speeds of the motor and the fan in order to find a happier medium for bubble blowing. I did do some testing with the fan speed to see if a 12V battery would be enough to blow bubbles while waving the wand past the fan, but if I were to do it again, I'd do some more testing before putting it all together and having to adjust it at the end.

For my next project, I want to make something from scratch, electronically. I think it might be easier to get the results I want and I'll learn more about electronic components!