This project aims to create a wireless Data glove that sends flex sensor and accelerometer data over Wifi.
These flex sensors are bought from Amazon, and I find them to be more sensitive to bending and more flexible than the Sparkfun ones. The sensor pins are also longer and thicker, which makes the soldering process less intimidating.
I wrapped the sensor pins just to be extra safe, I had broken many pins before so I want to avoid having to make last-minute amazon purchases as much as possible. Later realized that heat-shrinking tubes are an option so I had to unwrap them by hand:(
The full ensemble is somewhat clumsy, it would definitely look better and have a stronger connection if I soldered Arduino on a PCB board, but unfortunately, I could not get an unsoldered Arduino in time.
I attached the flex sensors to the store-bought bendable mechanical gloves and temporarily taped them down with electrical tape. I think the electrical tape makes a pretty secure adhesive, so I might just tape it instead of creating a special housing(since I am running out of time). If time allows, it would be good to wrap the sensors with flexible plastic tubing.
David kindly provided his WIFI UDP protocol code in his GitHub:
I followed the instructions and connected Arduino’s wifi module to my home wifi. It was easy to confuse which IP address to put in the TD and Arduino local sender function. The data from the flex sensor is sent through UDP protocol into TD. The flex sensor data is first converted into strings and then reformatted as arrays. After the home wifi connection as seen above, David helped me bypass the school’s wifi password and it was successfully connected as well.
TD data map to an acceptable range
The data from the flex sensor is sending a very small range of numbers, by using the math function I was able to set it to 1-2, which would be later mapped to the visual/audio chops.
The current glove is fully functional, I am hoping to create a more refined version (better battery connection & easier charging method, solder on PCB board to hide the wires and etc.) and document a higher-quality video soon.