BOMBer Jacket

Our project is related to fashion. The objective of our project was to create LED clothes. There is no real purpose to our project except fashion. The fact that fashion is something that can inspires us for a life-time is really important. The way we decided to create this project was really just like: "Do you want to draw? I like fashion so we could make a bomber jacket with a drawing in the back. I mean, if you want to!" "Yes, nice." So we didn't really had expectations or goals. All we wanted to do was something simple, with both fashion and art, with vibrant colors and glitters (because life is so much better with glitters!). We were so into our project that we forgot to take some pictures, but, still, there is some picture to help you realize where you are and to keep you on track. Okay, enough reading... GO MAKE YOUR OWN BOMBER JACKET!!!!!!!!!

***To see the final project, go at the end by doing all the steps to create your own piece of art, or just go at the end if you are curious.

The tools needed for our project are:

- Sewing machine

- Hot-glue gun

- Scissors

- Needle

- Paint brush

- Ruler

The material needed:

- Paper

- Pencil

- Fabric (we used a black piece of something that looked like suede)

- A piece of clothing you want to add LED to

- Fabric paint

- LED (depending on how much you want to add, you can see a video below and we used green ones)

- Electric wire

- Batteries (we used 3 volts, CR2032)

- Tread

- Studs

- Fabric pencil

- Padded fabric (so that the LED Circuit would be hide and it will still be comfortable to wear)

It is an important step of the creation you have to create or find a design that interest you. However it is important to keep in mind that some LED will be added later on so you have to decide where will be the LEDs on your design.

-For our project, we decided to go with something really fashion for spring: flowers, pinks and purple! Also, we knew that it is not all the girls that want flowers and girly things to wear, so, for the second drawing, we went with something more about nature and with green and blue.

After determining the design, determine the position of the design on your piece of clothing. In this particular project the design was placed on the back of a jacket.

-On the paper you drawn your fantastic design, you just try to guess which is the best place to put LED on (you don't want to have too much lights on it because it wouldn't look fashion after all, but you can surely add some glitters on it further to give your jacket or shirt a little fantasy).

Take the dimension and draw your design on a piece of fabric with the dimensions you decided.

-If you want to be sure everything is at its place and also to be sure that you are not doing this step for nothing, take out your ruler (if you are a little bit more badass than any other person, take a guess: we did that and it wasn't bad at the end).

After creating your design paint it with the color you decided.

-We really wanted our designs to look different, so we went with pastel colors for the girl with the flowers (pink, purple, light blue, light green and we faded colors into other colors to make it more fashionable) and for the boy falling into the sky, we went with natural colors (green, blue, grey).

For the quantity of LED we used no resistance were necessary but depending on the number of LED used some may be necessary. (In our case we only used 3).

-The fact that you add more LED and lead to having a different circuit than us. Be sure to respect Ohm's Law (http://www.rapidtables.com/electric/ohms-law.htm).

As the electric wires we used had a high resistance we had to use 3 3V batteries but depending of the wires only 1 may be necessary.

-Again, you need to play a little bit with the LED to see what you really need to have (we pretty much did just approximatively and it worked).

To create the circuit cut the wire with the length in mind (better a little too much then not enough). Connect the wires to the LED (one wire, one LED, one wire ect…) the first wire goes on the + and the second on the -. However be cautious, some LED have a specific side for them to light. In our case the longer end had to be on the + and the shorter on the -.

With a glue gun or tape glue the wire to the LED to be sure they won’t come of when you wear them.

Add a switch, ours brock so we had to change the system but a switch is recommended. As the circuit is in a series it can be added were ever it best feat as a position to your clothing.

Add stud to your fabric and design so you can fit your design there. Mark the place where will be the LEDs and create a hole in the fabric.

-We tried to play a little bit with glitters just to make the studs less visible.

Place the LEDs where are the holes then place a padded fabric secure the LEDs onto the fabric with hot glue then sew the padded fabric onto the clothing. Don’t forget to let a space for the switch so you turn on and off your LED circuit. You are done.

-You can try to hide the holes (and to secure them too) with hot glue. It looks pretty good and it is also easy to do. The padded fabric makes it more wearable and it is really nice not be able to see LED in the back.

Repeat for the other designs you may have keeping in mind the position of the LEDS.

We encountered a few problems...

First of all, finding a design that could fit the use of LEDs proved quite complicated. We decided to use a flower and star design so the use of LED would fit. Secondly as we had two designs deciding the quantity of LEDs and their position was quite difficult. We opted for fewer LEDs so we prevented the overlapping of LEDS and designs. Also finding the LEDs proved quite difficult and we finally opt for the material that was already at our disposition. Creating the LED circuit also proved itself harder than imagined as we didn’t know if we had to use resistance or not after a few researches it was found we didn’t need any. Also we encountered a problem when creating the circuit as the electric wires we used had a very high resistance and we had to rethink our circuit. The length of the wires had to be reduced to a minimum and the quantity of batteries was increased originally two should have been more than enough but the use of a third batteries was necessary. We also encountered a problem with the switch as it broke. We had to create a new system to switch on and off the system we decided to use an electrical tape sticked to the wire and when it has to be switch of you take of the tape of the battery and the LED turns off. Finally when sewing the cloth the patted fabric was harder than expected to sew to the rest of the jacket.

A lot could be improved on this project first of all, the LED system was a little sketchy and using a real switch would facilitate the use of the jacket and the LEDs. Secondly, the design could still be improved to be neater and look more professional even if the base idea is good the painting is a little sloppy.