#ctec599

The making of Transcend has definitely been the hardest project I have ever accomplished in my educational years. From this project, I have learnt a lot ranging from knowing what fabrics and equipment we had to get, to coding for the accelerometer to respond to the LED lights. I can admit this project has really opened my eyes as I began to grow more appreciation for people who do such difficult tasks we had met in the process of making the dress as a degree or for a living.

When my partner, Jenny Park, and I first thought of the idea of making the dress, we thought the project would not be as complicated, however we knew it was possible to face occasional challenges. With this conception we had in mind at the time, we thought the dress would be a great project as Jenny and I are both fashion enthusiasts and also are interested in technologies. The planning stage for this project was simple and we were off to a good start. We came up with various ideas on how we could make the dress interact with people, and did a lot of research on tutorials, as well as read how other people made their technological garments.

As the days went by, we began to realise how difficult making the dress itself actually was. We just could not understand the patterns of the dress because of its complex structure and design. As a result, we were behind schedule from the start as we could not make the dress at a faster pace. That was the first challenge we had come across because we could not start on any other task for two reasons - we did not have the tools and supplies from Adafruit, and we also needed the dress to be complete in order to attach the LED lights, Arduino FLORA, and the accelerometer on.

Getting the LEDs soldered together was a mission that I never want to come across again. Fiddling with such small components consequent in me burning my hand and fingers multiple times which I did not enjoy at all. The wires we used to join the LEDs together continuously ripped off as they were weak, therefore I came to a conclusion that actually my patience level is quite high. I learnt quite a lot about myself from this project actually.

Coding for the dress was probably the most difficult of all the tasks we had to do as Jenny and I are not a fan of programming with given such a limited time. I anticipate if we were given another two weeks, we could have done a better job, however I am already impressed with ourselves from what we have currently so I am not going to complain. With our project, the making of the dress itself took the most time, following by was the LED lights and other component attachments. This had resulted in our coding to be very last minute, which is the last struggle anyone wants. Being completely under pressure, we had eventually finished coding after a lot of help from the lecturers and other students which as a positive outcome resulted in us finishing our project.

I am confident to say that I knew from the start, even with facing the extreme challenges and difficulties that we would finish the dress. This I knew as Jenny and I are both the type of people who do not give up easily, and we will not stop working on a specific task or project until it has been fully completed. Overall, I am very relieved with the outcome. Originally, we were going to cover the dress in LED lights. However, after talking to a few lecturers about this, we realised that with the time period we were given, it would be almost impossible as both Jenny and I are new to the world of wiring and programming. Instead, we covered the top first third of the dress in LEDs to create a neck piece which worked out very well, and it still seemed to amaze everyone who had seen the dress.