To prepare the vibration sensor, we’ll solder wires to the leads and protect the whole thing with heat shrink tubing. If you want to try out different versions of the vibration sensor, use wires with connectors at the ends such as our premium breadboarding wires, or just use more silicone coated stranded wire.

First strip and tin one wire and slide a small piece of heat shrink tubing onto it. Tin the larger, center wire of the vibration sensor and then reheat the wire/sensor joint to melt the solder between the two. Slide the heat shrink tubing over the entirety of the exposed metal and shrink it with a heat gun (or lighter in a pinch).

Repeat with the outer wire, which is much skinnier, than slide a larger piece of heat shrink tubing over the whole sensor, extending down the wire a bit for added stability and moisture resistance.

Solder the sensors wires to D0 and GND on GEMMA (or use matching plugging wires if you’re making swappable sensors). The sensor is not polar, meaning it doesn't matter which wire goes to ground and which to D0.

Position your GEMMA approximately where it will go on your shoe, and trim the NeoPixel strip input wires to length, then solder them up to GEMMA in the same configuration you used to test earlier:

• GEMMA Vout -> NeoPixel strip 5v
• GEMMA D1 -> NeoPixel strip data
• GEMMA GND -> NeoPixel strip ground

Stitch GEMMA to your shoe using a needle and thread, and pliers if necessary to pierce through tough materials.