This year there are two Eclectic Tech Carnival’s, and I’m at the one going on in HUMLab, in Umea, very far north of Sweden with 24hr day light!!!

it all strated with a group called Gender Changers. If you wondering what a gender changer is, its one of these…

So, Eclectic Tech Carnival has been on for three days now. I have been to heaps of workshops, from animating dolls with motors to wearable technology, Open Source discussions to making microphones for musical instruments that use human hair as strings!!!!! (actually sounds better than wire or nylon)

Here are some pics from workshops so far…

This was the wearable tech workshop i went to. Kyveli gave a really nice intro some cool tricks to making cheap and discrete power supplies to all your fancy wearable tech needs. Check this out…

I made a cool bracelet that used surface mount LED’s soldered to metal beads, one side sewn to a conductive material and the other left loose to make a connection as you move around, so it kind of sparkled…

The fabric was already conductive, and the weave being in one direction meant i could make a circuit from it. I just had to sew some more conductive thread from the battery to the fabric, and then across a bit from the positive and negative points (making sure they didn’t cross over) to make the circuit the right width for the LED’s. The LED’s then acted like an on off switch when they made contact with the opposite part of the circuit running down the weave of the fabric… if that makes sense?

OK… more to come very soon…