Student: Chris Ioffreda (CMU, Making Things Interact, Spring 2010)
The HeartRace jacket is a jacket meant to aid and inspire runners. The jacket (which in reality is more like a vest) keeps runners safe when jogging during the night or day by making them visible to others and warning them when someone approaches from behind. The jacket also visualizes the wearer’s heartbeat (received from a Polar Heart Rate Monitor) with glowing LEDs.
The HeartRace jacket does a few things. First, the jacket receives the signal sent out by a Polar Heart Rate Monitor and uses this input to make LEDs glow. Red LEDs in the front and back of the jacket visualize the wearer’s heartbeat (assuming they are wearing a Polar monitor) by pulsing at half of its speed. These lights provide visual feedback to the runner of the work that they are doing. Runners can feel the empowered by the light that the jacket puts out.
Second, the jacket (although already visible by the pulsing red LEDs) has two super bright rear LEDs to ensure that approaching bikers and runners see the wearer. These blue LEDs are activated by a proximity sensor and glow brighter the closer the biker or runner is. The jacket also warns the runner when someone is approaching from behind. Once some enters within range of the jacket, small pager motors vibrate on each shoulder to let the wearer know. The motors vibrate periodically, along with two blue indicator LEDs on the front of the jacket, as long as someone is within range. This functionality is especially useful for runners who listen to music as they exercise. The jacket allows them to be aware of their surroundings. This way the runner is not startled by bikers or runners he/she can’t hear.
Lastly, the jacket has two IR sensors on either side of the jacket’s chest that can be used along with an IR emitting glove instead of buttons. The sensors pick up the IR light from the IR emitters on the glove; in this way, waving an arm infront of the jacket can replace physically pushing buttons. To test the concept, the sensors were assigned different tasks. Activating the right sensor turn all the LEDs on, activating the left sensor turned them all off, and waving the glove across the chest (hitting one sensor then the other) caused the LEDs to blink.