I’ve been getting more excited about the cross-over of sewing and technology lately. (With a physicist for a husband, I guess it might be a desire to find common crafting ground for us.) I was first introduced to the arduino at the very first Maker Faire in San Mateo back in 2006. I didn’t really spend the time to “get it” back then, but since the Faire my exposure to the arduino and it’s applications has grown, and I’m pushing myself to come up with a fun way to incorporate the technology into my sewing. That’s why I was so thrilled to see the winner of the latest Spoonflower Staff Challenge: the Spoonflower World Map.
Not only did they create a visually beautiful printed world map (with a watercolor-inspired grid that makes it perfect for a cheater print!), but they also used an arduino to wire LEDs to denote over 100 cities on the map.
Ultimately, they plan to program the arduino so that each online Spoonflower order will light the LED closest to the city that corresponds to the customer’s location (watch the video of the LEDs in action). How cool is that?!? Have you worked with technology & sewing before? Does it interest you?