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The BlueCotton Blog

3 Super-Geeky DIY T-Shirt Projects

Posted on March 30, 2011November 12, 2021 by Michael Dunn

Ben Heck’s “Portal”-Inspired T-Shirt

Ben Heck's "Portal" T-Shirt

Geek idol and modding god, Ben Heck, created his own high-tech t-shirt inspired by the popular video game “Portal” by Valve Software. The project utilizes a small LCD display, a miniature security camera, and a battery pack to create a t-shirt that creates the illusion of having a see-through ‘portal’ on your torso. Check out episode 4 of “The Ben Heck Show” for a full step-by-step breakdown of how he made the shirt.


Chris Ball’s E-mail Counting T-Shirt

Chris Ball, a software developer in Boston, used some electronics he won to build and program his own e-mailing counting shirt. The shirt uses a series of LED lights to display the number of unread e-mails he has in his gmail inbox. Check out his personal blog post about the project. He even provides a link to the source code used to create the shirt for those interested in replicating the idea.

The iShirt Laptop Case

The iShirt Laptop Case

Flickr user, Voxphoto, made this cool laptop case using an old pocket tee. He got the idea from an article in Make magazine, but made a few of his own adjustments to perfect the concept.



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