By: Amaya

The LilyPad Arduino is a microcontroller board designed for wearables and e-textiles. Plum-purple and round, it has "petal"-like connectors that radiate outwards.  The LilyPad can be sewn to fabric and similarly mounted power supplies, sensors and actuators with conductive thread. The board is based on the ATmega168V (the low-power version of the ATmega168).

The LilyPad Arduino was designed and developed in a partnership between Leah Buechley and SparkFun Electronics. The e-textile construction kit was designed to empower novices to work with electronic textiles. Using the kit, you can build your own soft interactive clothing and accessories.  One of the neat things I appreciate about the work Leah is doing with LilyPad is trying to make electronics more accessible to young girls.  The LilyPad is definitely feminine.  Purple, flower-like, and small, it's almost an accessory in itself, and it would definitely add aesthetically to any light up fashion statement one could dream up.

The LilyPad Arduino is more fragile and easy to break than a regular Arduino board. According to the specs, one shouldn't connect more than 5.5 volts to the + tab or reverse the power and ground pins of your power supply, or you will very likely kill the ATmega168V on the LilyPad Arduino. And as you can't remove the ATmega168V, if you kill it, you're out $20.

I've been using the LilyPad in a couple projects - an interactive light-up flower string and for my wedding dress.  So far, I'm fairly impressed with the Arduino programming environment.  One thing I don't like about LilyPad in general is the 8 second delay you experience between uploading code and seeing it live.  Also, the teensy button press required to upload new code is sometimes irritating when one is trying to do rapid prototyping.

Another concern I have about the LilyPad is longevity.  According to the manufacturer, the LilyPad is washable, but what about the circuitry you build onto it?  The device is also built to interact with conductive thread in its final state (you're meant to sew into holes in the "petals" of the LilyPad). 

Conductive thread is another design concern for wearable electronics.  According to electronics costume engineer Janet Hansen of Enlighted Designs (www.enlighted.com), "Conductive thread can be useful in certain low power applications, but  it is not suitable for large arrays of LEDs or other circuits that  draw a lot of current."  Hansen also points out that conductive thread is also comparatively expensive, fragile, and difficult to attach to LEDs securely in relation to the "traditional" approach that she prefers to use in her custom handmade designs: stranded insulated wire, with soldered junctions.  She says,

"Also, if a soft circuit is created with bare (uninsulated) thread, you run the risk of shorting it out when the fabric is crumpled - this could damage the components, or even burn the fabric.  You can address this problem by using coated conductive thread, or isolating the wires with other methods, but in my opinion the drawbacks still outweigh the novelty of softness in most cases."

I have certainly witnessed issues of 'wardrobe malfunction' with conductive thread in wearable electronics.  One particularly devastating experience happened at  last month's Maker Faire.  I met a young man with a breathtaking light-up cape all built with LEDs and surface hand-sewing on the back of the garment.  About 10 minutes later, after a couple minutes of vigorous dancing to the evening's entertainment, several of the thread junctions had broken down, and the lights were out for the night.

Hansen, who has done costume work for groups like Daft Punk and Kanye West, doesn't have the luxury of such breakdowns.  Sometimes by using old-fashioned methods you build more reliable products!

LilyPad at SparkFun:  http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8465

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