‪Mustached pig, lightsaber, and crossbody purse, oh my! So many different designs in our Class V sewable circuits unit! #MakerEd #STEAM @brearleynyc @lectrifyit‬

Another year, another collection of super creative designs from these Class V girls at The Brearley School. This year, we used battery holders from Lectrify. Next year, I’m hoping to use the metallic thread in lovely colors (rather than the usual grey-ish color) which belatedly arrived.

I’m hoping to launch an afterschool activity, Wearable Wires, where we can spend a bit more time on wearable creations and include some kind of microcontroller (Lilypad, Gemma, Micro:Bit), sensors (light, sound, temperature, heartbeat), fancy lights (Lily Tiny,Flora NeoPixel), and some programming (Arduino, MakeCode)…

Fun with sewable circuits, Class 5, and @PietroEnnis at @BrearleyNYC #STEAM #MakerEd #elemaker

@PietroEnnis and I are wrapping up a Class 5 project on sewable circuits. These Brearley girls are so fun to work with! They are creative, funny, inquisitive, and passionate about whatever they set their mind to. For this project (which correlated with a study of electricity in Science class), students were tasked with creating a circuit using conductive thread, as many as 5 LEDs, a coin cell battery, and some sort of means of powering their circuit (a battery pocket or a LilyPad battery holder with switch). Projects included dog collars, wrist cuffs, neck ties, donuts, animals, ice cream cones, and a skateboarding taco.

Before anyone began threading needles or cutting felt, everyone was asked to draw a template of their project (to scale) on paper. This sketch included the location of the battery pack, location of any lights, and distinct paths for the conductive thread in order to connect the negative “legs” of the lights and the positive “legs” of the lights.

While I’ve used YouTube videos and various resources in the past to help students review how to sew a parallel circuit, this time I brought Jaymes Dec and Ji Sun Lee’s book to class. Make: Tech DIY has great project ideas, lovely photos, and clear instructions. I love supporting my friends!