As the weather gets cooler and the day becomes shorter, students are preparing for the start of a new school year. Summer may be coming to an end, but that doesn’t mean your Teknikio projects are. Personalize your own school supplies by making a light-up patch for your book covers! Follow these steps to be one of the coolest people in your class.

Step 1: Choose any piece of fabric that has enough stretch to fit your composition notebook.

Step 2: Place the fabric on a composition notebook, cutting and sewing the corners as necessary so that it best fits your book.  

Step 3: Trace and cut out the shapes onto your felt pieces that you’ll need for your design.

Step 4: Sew each piece onto the top of your book cover. Be sure not to sew the bottom of the tongue onto the book cover!  

Step 5: Circuit design

1. Take the piece of felt that will act as the tongue and place your heart LED in the center of it.
2. Place a battery board on the other side of where your light bulb is, making sure that it is below the heart LED light and that the positive and negative pads align

3. Using conductive thread, loop around the positive pad three times and sew it to the positive pad on your battery board. Be sure to loop around it three times. Cut the thread and tie a knot.   

4. Take the top part of a snap and place it at the bottom right corner of the tongue.

5. Sew from the negative pad on the heart LED, being sure to loop around it three times to the snap, being sure to sew it through all four corners of your snap. Be sure not to sew it down to the book cover! Tie a knot and cut your thread.

6.Place the bottom part of your snap on your book cover but directly under the snap on the tongue so that when you press down they snap together.

7. Sew the snap down along all four corners to the negative pad on your battery board. Remember to loop around it three times, tie a knot, and cut your thread.

8. You’re all done! Test your circuit by placing your battery in. The LED light should light up when the snaps close together.

Step 6: Now on to the funny part! Trace the phrase “Watts Up?” [Get it? ;) ] onto any color felt you’d like and cut it out.

Step 7: Sew your letters onto your book cover, be sure not to sew the front and the back together.

Step 8: There is none. Go off and be the coolest kid in your classroom!