The LilyTiny: A Case Study in Expanding Access to Electronic Textiles

The LilyTiny sewable microcontroller was created ten years ago, in an effort to make electronic textiles more accessible. At the time, e-textiles was gaining traction as a means to invite more diverse participation in computing, but financial and instructional barriers stood in the way of broader adoption. In addition, there existed a scaffolding gap between projects involving lights, batteries, and thread – and those requiring programming (i.e. leveraging the LilyPad Arduino and/or additional sensors or outputs). In an effort to expand access to electronic textiles, we designed the LilyTiny, an inexpensive, pre-programmed sewable microcontroller which controls assorted LED patterns, and which later became available for purchase through SparkFun. Alongside the LilyTiny, we released a free workshop guide for educators which details five low-cost activities that can be taught without any prior electronics experience. This paper summarizes our development of the LilyTiny and companion curriculum – and reflects on whether we met our stated goal of expanding access to electronic textiles in the decade since. We share and discuss some measures of impact, including a survey of derivative products and a multi-year analysis of sales data from the LilyTiny’s sole distributor SparkFun Electronics.