Throw away your old plastic Dance Dance Revolution mat and bring yourself into the future with a miniature crocheted DDR pad. TikTok creator kims_threads did just that using her crochet hook, some yarn, conductive thread, and an Arduino. It’s both extremely cute and functional: She sets it up to connect to a computer to play DDR with her hands. Look, if you scale it up using granny squares, you may be able to put together a whole dang functional rug.
This crochet DDR mat is cute and functional
Made with yarn, conductive thread, and an Arduino
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Image: kims_threads via TikTok
Nicole Carpenter is a senior reporter specializing in investigative features about labor issues in the game industry, as well as the business and culture of games.
Kims_threads followed a tutorial from Popular Science to learn how to rig up a custom dance pad, and used her own crochet skills to create the mat itself. Once the crochet mat was done, she used a needle to weave the conductive thread through the yarn to make it functional. Honestly, it’s genius. We love a woman in STEM!
Kims_threads sells several different crochet patterns on her Etsy shop; if we’re lucky, she’ll upload a pattern for this one so that crocheters of the world — namely, me — can make our own cute mini and playable DDR granny square.
Beyond DDR, kims_threads has a bunch of other adorable gaming-, entertainment-, and tech-related yarn crafts: a knit Animal Crossing: New Horizons bell bag beanie, a crochet Tamagotchi tapestry, an elaborate Howl’s Moving Castle balaclava, and a QR code sweater. The possibilities of crochet and knitting are endless.
Personally, I’ve just started to relearn crochet over this past weekend. Looks like my next project may as well be a DDR rug.
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