Jellyfish Interface

I’ve been thinking about doing something with the old Marriott carpet square we have, but how do you base a costume on a small piece of carpet?  This is my first attempt, for wear at DragonCon 2017

– Ellie

Wow.  Against all odds, it all came together and worked great, thanks to all the help from our friends and from DragonCon staff!  It’s hard to pick one thing to start with, but let’s try this:

Why haven’t we posted for more than a MONTH??  The second jellyfish (which is done, by the way) took forever to finish, and we were all focused on that.  Sorry!

To make up for it, here’s a video of the sash back-lighting for Dee’s blue gown:

We’re scrambling like mad to get one of the jellyfish completed for the 4th of July (so we can take some demo video), and that means slogging through hours and hours of repetitive tasks for the tentacles.  Here are some fun facts:

• The tentacles for two jellyfish require approximately 1000 feet of wire
• They have as many lights as the umbrellas do – 96 each
• Each jellyfish’s tentacles have seventy-two 8-bit color channels
• This took a really long time to solder 😛

Woohoo! Finally got the code figured out for the Jellyfish! It’s just one quarter of the system, but it looks pretty good. I can’t wait to see it with the tentacles attached and both jellyfish going together.

Gus finished attaching the sash to Dee’s dress, and we got it put together for a test run!  Next step: twinkling LEDs for the sash and a lace parasol…

The jellyfish control panel’s finally done (and working)! Now I just have to finish writing the radio code…

Here’s where we are for the cloth parts of our costumes:  The dress is complete, except for its sash.  The vest and skirt are almost done (and looking awesome).  The armor is designed, and we’re about halfway through actually making it.

Of course, most of the electronics and accessories still have to be finished, but there will be *many* pictures once that happens 😀  Also, the reactor earring parts have arrived and are progressing nicely.

We finished the visualizer circuit for the jellyfish!

This thing is mesmerizing – I tacked three LEDs onto it so I could tune the algorithms, and I’ve been staring at it for hours: