I made these bracelets as gifts for some friends. Lately it has been a pattern for me to create a simple device as gifts instead of just buying something for someone. These are the third or fourth iteration of this design. I started off making use of some of the “NASA Fabric” models I found of Thingiverse.com, like this one: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3095799. By linking these together in three or four rows, hollowing out each piece to fit a neopixel, I created a bracelet with some cool lighting effects.
The version shown here was completely created by me. I switched from the NASA Fabric because I wanted a thinner bracelet that could curve more around the wrist. I will definitely be using that for something else. I built each pod around the dimensions of an individual NeoPixel. Each pod has arms and sockets to connect to the next pod, with a great amount of articulation at the joints. I have hot glued some fabric to the underside to cover the circuit and battery hole. A circuit playground is driving the NeoPixels, including its own. The filament really added to the look. I used a glass red PLA and a silver PLA with glitter in it.
The entire code to run the NeoPixels was put together in MakeCode, with a simple button press to toggle through several colors and animated sequences. The rainbow colored images are actually animations of the pixels changing colors individually. The only flaw is that the Circuit Playground Express board do not have a built-in charger for the battery. So plugging in the micro-USB will not charge the battery. Instead the JST connector of the battery is plugged into a charger.
My next version of this will replace a the Circuit Playground Express with a Bluetooth enabled board, probably the Circuit Playground Bluefruit. This way I can change the colors and animations wirelessly, or maybe even sync it with the Wearable1,2 platform.
Booman's Workshop 