Getting Started with Adafruit FLORA: Making Wearables with an Arduino-Compatible Electronics Platform

by Becky Stern, Tyler Cooper

This book introduces readers to building wearable electronics projects using Adafruit's tiny FLORA at 4.4 grams, and only 1.75 inches in diameter, and featuring Arduino compatibility, it's the most beginner-friendly way to create wearable projects. This book shows you how to plan your wearable circuits, sew with electronics, and write programs that run on the FLORA to control the electronics. The FLORA family includes an assortment of sensors, as well as RGB LEDs that let you add lighting to your wearable projects.

Genres: Nonfiction

112 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 25, 2014

Reviews

[Eric Mesa · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all, lots of kudos for the authors including lots of photos. Many of the other microcontroller books I've read from MAKE have had illustrations, but this one actually has photos and that's very helpful when illustrating sewing.

After reading this I'm inspired to mess around with some wearable tech, but also extremely terrified of screwing something up as someone who's done little to no sewing. However, I might end up teaming up with my mother-in-law who's a great seamstress to work on some projects. Just need to decide on a plan of attack first.

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather short introduction to the adafruit flora, with almost no mention of other adafruit offerings, but there is a (short) series of projects to get you started, beginner, intermediate, and advanced. It's a nice primer, but there's a lot to be desired when discussing capabilities and options for the adafruit line. There is enough here to get someone started, but once that's done, they're going to need to go elsewhere for details and/or help with using their adafruit devices.
There is a chapter dedicated to getting help though, so that's a plus, and there's also a list of parts (with part numbers) so folks can purchase the same components used in the projects, (something that seems to be lacking from other books of this type), so that too is nice.
Overall, I'd pick up this book if my only goal was to make a couple projects, but I'd not use this book as a guide on the adafruit, or refer it to it for details on adafruit capabilities or options.

[Phoebe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great, practical projects that are perfect for absolute beginners.

[MusicalMommy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great "step by step" instruction book but it would have been better if it delved a bit deeper to explain some of the coding involved so we leave the book a bit more independent, than when we started.

[to'c · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good intro to the use of the Flora in building wearables. I especially like how Ms. Stern assumes no knowledge, even of sewing. She makes the topic more accessible to all readers.

Now to go build something…