Mattori’s LilyPad Arduino GPS Glove
Hello, my name is Mattori and this is my GPS Glove.
The glove uses a LilyPad Arduino, a special type of Arduino that is specifically made for clothing and e-textiles. I based my project on an Instructable by _macke_. It is shaped like a lilypad with holes for pins in a circle with the connectors, chip, and other parts inside of the circle. It is very flat, allowing it to smoothly fit on clothing. The other two major computing parts for the project are the GPS (UP501) and the compass (HMC6352), both of which are above (closer to the fingers than) the LilyPad. The last parts are the seven LEDs which represent southwest, west, northwest, north, northeast, east, and southeast. They are sewn in a semi-circle with southwest and southeast the closest to the LilyPad and north the furthest away.
The GPS Glove functions as a directional navigator, and it points using the LEDs in the direction that you must travel to arrive at a destination. For example, if the west LED is on you need to turn 90°, and it will turn off while the northwest LED will turn on when you turn 45° to the left. If the north LED is lit you are facing the correct direction. Note that when the LEDs are referred to as directions, i.e. the north LED, it does not mean that that LED is always facing north but rather that it is forward. They are called by direction names for simplicity’s sake. The GPS Glove does not give full navigation guidance like a common GPS as it can only tell you which way to turn. This means that it is more useful in an open environment or otherwise with few obstacles to have to move around.
The GPS Glove functions by first finding itself with the GPS itself. Then, the LilyPad takes the coordinates that must be provided in the code as a destination and works with the compass to determine which direction you must face to get to your destination. The LEDs then reflect this information. It updates a couple times a second providing very accurate data.
Making the GPS Glove was a rather difficult task. I had no experience using Arduino prior to BlueStamp, although I had coded before using C++ and Java. I had never soldered before BlueStamp either. This was the first time I had ever made anything nearly this sophisticated, especially hardware-wise which is something I had previously avoided for the most part. Luckily, the instructors were incredibly useful, and I am not writing that to be complimentary. I doubt I could ever complete this, at least within this time-frame, without their assistance. Whenever I had problems with understanding code or wiring the setup they were able to help me and continue working. There were a few hiccups with the code and the GPS and compass along the way. For one, the code was assuming you would use a compass with tilt compensation, which is something my compass did not have. They were able to help me adjust my code and change some of the ways the data was handled to work with the different compass. The GPS often would not work and output readable data for one reason or another, which they were able to help me figure out. Even as the project did not work in the last days I was able to push through with their help to debug and get it as functional as possible. It was difficult overall, but now with the knowledge I have now at the end of the program I feel like I could do much more complicated and interesting projects in the future, and I feel very motivated as well because of how fun BlueStamp has been. I am sorry to see it be over for this year but also look forward to next year when I can do a whole new project.
Here is my complete project documentation: Mattori GPS Glove Documentation
And here’s my final video!
However, before my glove was finished, I had to reach my first milestone:
Mattori’s Mintyboost Starter
For my BlueStamp starter project I made a MintyBoost, originally invented by adafruit. It is a backup power source made of two AA batteries that allows any device that powers through USB.