Flora Heart-On-My-Sleeve

Inspiration

Wearable products on the Adafruit design blog

What it does

The Amped Pulse Sensor measures the wearer's heartbeat and feeds that data to the Arduino FLORA. The Arduino measures individual beats and calculates beats-per-minute (BPM). The LEDs flash with each beat and the color of each flash indicates the approximate range of the wearer's BPM, ranging from blue for very calm to red for very agitated.

How I built it

I used stainless steel conductive thread for both structural and electrical connections, and modeled the whole project on some scrap burlap for demo purposes. Normally I would integrate the project into an actual shirt. The code is written in the subset of C++ that many Arduino libraries use.

Challenges I ran into

My external AAA battery pack is not working, possibly due to corroded internal contacts. I'm therefore powering the whole thing over USB.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I planned carefully enough that I did not make any wiring mistakes. Also I added in a "fade" effect for each heartbeat.

What I learned

Fabrication takes a long time, so do lots of extra planning before you start to avoid wasted work. Also have backup plans for everything (battery packs failing, using hot glue instead of solder to avoid fumes, etc...).