Tag Archives: Flora GPS jacket

A NeoGeo watch for cyberpunks and steampunks

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Earlier this month, the AdaFruit crew designed a pair of Atmel-powered goggles dubbed “Kaleidoscope Eyes” and a chic Flora GPS Jacket for cyberpunks, steampunks and yes, even Daft Punks.  Today we’re going to be taking a closer look at an Atmel-powered NeoGeo watch that can be tastefully paired with Adafruit’s futuristic goggles and Flora GPS Jacket for a full cyberpunk/steampunk fashion ensemble.

Designed by Adafruit’s Becky Stern and Tyler Cooper, the NeoGeo watch is based on the wearable Flora platform (ATmega32u4 MCU) and an accompanying GPS module.

“[You can] make your own LED timepiece [that] tells time with a ring of pixels. A leather cuff holds the circuit and hides the battery. [Yes], the watch is chunky, but still looks and feels great on tiny wrists,” Stern wrote in a detailed Adafruit tutorial.

“The circuit sandwich becomes the face of the watch, and you’ll use a tactile switch to make a mode selector. The watch has timekeeping (one LED for hours and one for minutes), GPS navigation (customize your waypoint in the provided Arduino sketch) and compass modes.”

According to Stern, the NeoGeo watch is an intermediate-level project requiring soldering and precision crafting. Key components and equipment include:

  • FLORA main board
  • NeoPixel ring
  • FLORA Wearable Ultimate GPS Module
  • FLORA Accelerometer/Compass Sensor – LSM303
  • Tactile switch
  • Tiny lipoly battery with charger
  • Leather watch cuff (Adafruit’s is from Labyrinth Leather)
  • Small scrap of fabric
  • E6000 craft adhesive
  • Binder clips
  • Thin-gauge stranded wire
  • Double-stick foam tape
  • Black gaffer tape
  • Multimeter
  • Soldering iron (Rosin Core solder), scissors, wire strippers, pliers, tweezers and flush snips

In terms of assembling the circuit, Makers are instructed to kick off the project by soldering small stranded wires to their electronics components, about two inches long each.

“Strip the wire ends, twirl the stranded core to make it more easily pass through the circuit boards’ holes, and solder to the NeoPixel ring’s IN, Vcc, and Gnd pads,” Stern explained.

“It’s best to solder on the back side of this particular board, since the pads are quite close to the leads of the NeoPixels on the front of the board, where a large dab of solder could bridge the two.”

Interested in learning more? Be sure to check out Becky Stern’s detailed NeoPixel tutorial posted on Adafruit here.