The launch of the Arduino UNO R4 marks an enormous leap ahead for our group. For us, it’s additionally the possibility to have a good time the individuals who carry our ecosystem to life with their vivid concepts, radiant enthusiasm, and shining perception.

That’s how the UNO R4 Stars weblog put up collection started: to spotlight makers who haven’t solely created superb initiatives with Arduino, however who’re giving again to the group by sharing as they go and serving to others make something they want.

We invite you to find every profile, hoping you would possibly discover a North Star to navigate round an increasing galaxy or enterprise into utterly new universes.

Many people assume electronics are a fantastic factor, however Anouk Wipprecht takes it to the following degree. The Dutch designer creates interactive clothes that flip clothes into sensorial experiences, pushing wearables into the sphere of robotic couture she is pioneering. Try her YouTube or Vimeo channel to see the Spider Costume, which assaults anybody getting too near the wearer, or the Smoke Costume, impressed by octopi’s protection mechanisms. 

Wipprecht started exploring #FashionTech over 20 years in the past, when computer systems had been nonetheless huge and ponderous – and really troublesome to cover in a gown. For her, the whole lot modified when she found Arduino by attending an interplay design course held by our very personal David Cuartielles and the Arduino crew in Malmo, Sweden. That’s when she discovered to leverage the technological platform Arduino offers to create more and more smaller wearable methods, and most significantly, with that she grew to become a part of a various and eclectic group of makers. Utilizing the identical easy boards her teammates had been engaged on initiatives starting from RC automobiles to early drones. In the meantime, following her ardour for style, she was particularly within the potential of smaller and extra versatile {hardware} elements to carry her creations to life.

Through the years she has furthered her analysis with each new technological development, as much as her newest creation: the Chroma gown for Chromatic 3D, which senses different folks’s proximity and lights up accordingly, mimicking the bioluminescence of fireflies with LEDs embedded in an modern elastomer mesh cloth.

For this explicit garment, Wipprecht selected the brand new Arduino Nano ESP32 due to its excellent mixture of small type issue – simple to combine within the design and cozy to put on on the physique – and nice energy. To not point out, the module made interconnections simpler than ever and helped pace up your complete undertaking: “The method went tremendous quickly from ideation to last experiment, and we had been capable of swap backwards and forwards with a view to optimize it.”

“The best factor about Arduino is it makes working with electronics actually enjoyable,” she says. The expertise is so pleasurable because of nice ease of use and suppleness – which additionally permits Wipprecht to make use of Arduino when she teaches, encouraging a complete new era of makers to show their concepts into actuality. 

“The nice benefit we have now right this moment is we have now a number of accessibility to essentially cool instruments, from highly effective machines, to all the most recent electronics and expertise, and it doesn’t price as a lot because it used to. It makes it very easy to make cool stuff.”

We requested Wipprecht, “What’s your favourite a part of the UNO R4?”

• The upper processing energy: “Everybody needs higher processing energy, on a regular basis!”
• How simple it’s to make use of: “It’s principally plug-and-play,” making it excellent for prototyping in addition to instructing.

To maintain up with the most recent style in microcontrollers, observe Wipprecht on Vimeo and LinkedIn, or bookmark her web site!