Electrotextile Robot

Remember back to these humble beginnings? I ran into several snags along the way with this project but it is finally finished. Firstly, I managed to completely lose the prototype. Yep, it's gone! I turned my sewing room upside down looking for it, then the rest of the house and even the shed was thoroughly searched, but either I didn't do a good enough search job or I took this somewhere and it didn't come home.

The second snag was in the making itself. I put together a little robot design to use three LEDs and then stitched it together with conductive thread - it didn't work. So I had to research all my basic electronics knowledge and relearn how to hook up multiple LEDs. Two days later, after cutting away all my conductive thread and soldered the pieces together multiple times I finally had it working. This was not without issues as well... and melting the plastic around the battery holder a little, some swearing, and lots of resoldering!

After finally getting it right and drawing up a circuit diagram for the pattern I stitched it up in conductive thread. The conductive thread is really great to work with. It is thicker than standard cotton thread, more like a stiff embroidery thread, so I had hardly any tangles. It also made the circuit come together a lot quicker than my experiences in soldering it. I tried to be very thorough in the pattern instructions so that if you have no experience in electronics but still want to give this a go it should be beginner friendly!

Long story short: The robot is finally complete and the result is very cute!!


For the next week you can get 10% off on the pattern and/or kit by using the coupon code GOGOROBOTLED

Suggestions for new designs welcome. Head over to the Happy Bobbin blog for the chance to win a 50% off coupon for your suggestion!