Quite often, I find myself out at shows, parties and festivals with a need to carry around some some must have items, like my wallet, keys, phone, and such. Of course, fun costume party clothes never have pockets, so the only viable option is some form of bag. However, I would find myself thinking my bag needed to be more interesting and blinky, to draw much needed attention to myself. Thus was born the idea of this programmable LED party bag.

My intention was to create a functional, reasonably stylish, self-contained bag filled with programmable LEDs. The bag is designed to hide the battery, controller board, wires and LEDs, while being durable enough to survive the inevitable bumps, rubs and bouncing around you experience in crowded clubs and dancefloors.

The electronics are removable, in case any of it needs to be replaced. Since it uses an arduino compatible controller board, it is easy to reprogram for any occasion. There is also a switch wired into the bag, so you can include changes to the pattern or colors in your program.

So if you want to draw attention to yourself, and be the life of any event, follow along with me and have your own super bright party bag!

I must give many, many thanks to Erin St. Blaine, for writing her Animated Neopixel Glow Fur Scarf Tutorial (https://learn.adafruit.com/animated-neopixel-gemma-glow-fur-scarf/materials). If you browse her tutorial, you will find many ideas of hers used in my project. I liked her code, so that is what I used to control my project. Since I used her code, I needed the same wiring layout, and used the membrane switch she did. Some other parts of it were just fantastic ideas I incorporated.