This summer I fell in love with hoop dancing and have been brainstorming fun ways to combine hooping and soft circuits. Most of us have seen the fancy LED and fire hoops that make for great performances, but can it be taken a step further and have truly interactive hoops?

Here are a few tests of crochet stretch sensors (and some more knit sensors for comparison) as I try to determine the method that works best for me.

This week my order of Nm10/3 Conductive Yarn from Plug and Wear arrived. I immediately started making some samples of the knit sensors I blogged about a few weeks ago.

Awhile back I purchased a couple of Gakken Mini Theremins to play with. Here is an experiment with putting one inside a crocheted anglerfish plush.

This week I’ve been working on two different ways of creating light up fairy wings for Halloween.

Today I made a sock puppet that makes sound when you open it’s mouth. I used one of those greeting cards that plays sounds when you open it, some felt, and plastic buttons. It was a quick project for a rainy day and is a great way to use up old cards.

Last week I found some WiFi Detecting Keychains on sale for $5 and decided they would make a fun weekend hack. I personally don’t like keychain gadgets, but they are great for incorporating into wearable projects because of how small and compact the circuit boards are.

Last weekend was the Cambridge Mini Maker Faire, which took place as part of the Cambridge Science Festival. A bunch of Boston-area makers were there to demo their projects and talk with the kids, families, and science-curious who came to the festival. I made the trek down from New Hampshire and spent the day hanging out and talking about my Soft Circuit Saturdays projects.

While packing up my projects and doing a bit of spring cleaning, I came up with the idea of a portable scrapbook/notebook to house all my favorite techniques, prototypes, components and samples. I was inspired by textile sample books to use a three ring binder and removable pages as a storage solution for my ‘must have’ items.

This weekend was the annual RPM Challenge Listening Party. I was inspired the afternoon before to make a project to wear there. Though it was a little too ambitious of me to expect to get something functioning for the event with only a few hours of prototyping/design time, I did have fun and got a good start on a little soft circuit necklace hack.