Process |¶
Ideation & sketches¶
Weaving is a fabrication process that is shaped by art, mathematics, and engineering. For centuries, humans have used woven cloth to create artistic expressions through material, color, pattern, and weave. These artistic expressions ofer an opportunity to explore mathematical representations and models for patterns and textiles
Weaving machines aford the re-contextualization of digital and computation in a non-typical application. Recently, weaving has been explored as a way of fabricating electronics. Applications have explored the ability to weave conductive thread into cloth with applications in sensing, actuation, and design. Not only can weaving be used in engineering, engineering is a necessary component of weaving. Cloth is fabricated by interlacing vertical warp yarns with horizontal weft yarns. Many mathematical principles are illustrated in weaving paradigms, including the matrix representations of pattern design. Weaving patterns are often represented as weaving drafts (Figure 1) consisting of four major components:
Threading (which warp yarns are actuated by which shaft), Tie-up (which shafts can be raised together by a single pedal), Treadling (which pedal is pressed at a given time step), and Draw Down (final cloth pattern).
Given the binary nature of weaving, we can write each of the parts of the weaving draft as a binary matrix (1)
My vision is for Loom One to behave like the TC2 loom, capable of producing vibrant textile designs, explore new weaving techniques and incorporate electronics inside the weave. At our school we have worked with the TC2 loom and students bloom weaving freely. These are some examples of the final projects by textile design students.
Their final exam is to weave a photo of themselves as children. The results are extraordinary.
Can you imagine what an artist or an experienced craftsman could do if we make this technology accessible?¶
Background¶
The interest in making a low cost manual Jacquard loom, where prototypes can be made, is reflected in the many attempts to build one.
The most interesting ones I have found include the following:
The first type of these looms are the traditional frame looms. There are many commercial designs of these looms, but I want to highlight two models.
The first is from Fraens Engineering, 3D printed. Fraens starts by making a loom printed entirely by hand and then, using the principle of the table loom, creates a loom that is also 3D printed but fully automated.
The second loom I want to mention is the Fab Loom. Initiative of the Peruvian Walter González. The low-cost Fab Loom optimizes traditional loom production by 60%, making both the loom's manufacturing and the weaving process itself very quick. In Lima, local artisans are already using it, contributing their ideas and advice to improve the design. That is to say, everyone can contribute their best ideas and build it in a fablab anywhere in the world. An open hardware loom.
The second type of looms I want to show as a background are those that change the state of the threads one by one, using a shaft that changes the state of the heddles through a half turn of the shaft or with a belt that moves an actuator to change the state of the heddles one by one, just like the shaft method.
There are four looms, that I want to mention, using this principle:
The first is Kurt's loom. At the heart of the loom is a long row of cams sitting on a square shaft. In order to not have this giant row of cams jamming up, the cams have almost no load. The square shaft locks most of the cams in position but has one section that can rotate to spin a single cam. The main idea was to have the cams not do the lifting and lowering of threads directly, but to have them shift some hooks back and forth. If the hook was over a bar, then the bar could do the work of raising and lowering the threads.
The second loom in this section is the J.3D.1 (jedi) loom, defined by its creators the industrial designer Alice Gielen and the electric engineer Joana Coronel Soler:
A low-cost computing 3D weaving jacquard loom to empower weavers. It is a tool for experimenting with sample-making, allowing expert and novice weavers to play with add-ons and new weaving techniques.
The third is the Carnegie Mellon Textiles Lab loom.
They present an inexpensive tabletop loom that ofers fully computational patterning while maintaining the flexibility of handweaving. The loom can be assembled for under US$200 with 3D printed parts, and it can be controlled straightforwardly over USB. This loom is explicitly a hand loom: that is, a weaver is required to operate the weaving process and may mediate row-by-row patterning and material specifics like yarn tension.
The Carnegie Mellon approach combines the flexibility of fully analog handweaving with the computational affordances of digital fabrication: it enables the incorporation of special techniques and materials, as well as allowing for the possibility of computational and creative interventions in the weaving process itself. In taking this approach, they aim to serve a range of end users including artisans and researchers, whether for skill-building, for rapid prototyping, or for creative reflection.
And finally another remarkable example in this section is the Weav3r Loom from Jander's LEGO® Stuff. This loom is completely made with Lego pieces and a computerized system. The selection of the heddles is done, like in the case of the Jedi, through a band and an actuator that selects the threads one by one.
Finally, the third type of loom is the one that changes the state of the threads instantly or almost instantly, all the heddles at the same time.
It is in this category where the Loom One can be found, a loom that can be used daily for prototyping fantastic fabrics.
The first loom I want to mention is the 24-Bit Friendship Loom manufactured by Ilan Moyer from MIT. In this loom, the selection of the threads is done using electromagnets that pull a metal sphere to lock the heddles.This system is very similar to the Franco Robredo Loom.
As we can see, the loom doesn't have many threads.Our experience is that this system has a very high electrical current demand. When the number of threads is multiplied, the current tends to infinity and it is very easy to burn the electronic boards.
Finally, a remarkable loom is the SpeerLoom from Samantha Speer's team at Carnegie Mellon University.The loom selects the threads one by one through a series of linear actuators that raise and lower the heddles.They have developed interesting things with the control software since they created a mathematical model that ensures the integrity of the fabric.
SPEERLoom’s software allows to explore cloth integrity employing a novel algorithm to assess if a cloth meets the mathematical criteria for “falling apart". This enables designers to explore custom, complex patterns not guaranteed to have good cloth integrity, It is the only real-time algorithm to calculate cloth layering using Grunbaum and Shepard’s defnition
I will encourage to read the paper SPEERLoom: An Open-Source Loom Kit for Interdisciplinary Engagement in Math, Engineering, and Textiles, which is invaluable.
The Vision¶
The vision for the LoomOne project is that designers can not only create innovative textile designs but also technical designs and rapidly experiment with different ideas.
There are two very interesting examples of this.
The first is about how to make a textile with a flexible reed that can loosen or tighten the fabric to change the configuration.This development was carried out by Gali Cnaani and Yoav Sterman from the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion, Haifa, Israel.
This experimental development can be seen in the paper A VARIABLE WEAVING REED FOR PRODUCING 3D AND SEAMLESS GARMENTS. This paper introduces the concept of a three-dimensional, variable reed. The reed affects the weaving structure by varying the density of the weft yarns acrossthe woven fabric. This new reed is designed in a way that allows the dents to move back and forth during weaving. Changeable cardboard stencils hold the dents in position. Using the stencils, the reed’s dents may create different curves that copy themselves onto the weft yarns. This affects the weave architecture, since the weft yarns may not only be perpendicular to the warp yarns. Our reed allows new structural possibilities and new properties for woven textiles.
What we see is that the development is done with a TC2 loom, unattainable for most textile design schools.
The second really interesting project is the joint work between the artist Chloé Bensahel, working together with Ida Ely Rubin and Zach Lieberman's MIT Media Lab Future Sketches group to conduct new research around textile and memory, building on MIT’s legacy as the first place to weave memory technologies.
Chloe Bensahel considers textiles to be containers of information, carrying language, stories, and belief systems woven in by the human mind. Her recent work uses conductive thread technologies to create textiles that can “speak” their own stories through elements like sound and light.
At MIT, Bensahel dove into historical innovations that harnessed textiles as potent forms of code in order to create new memory technologies using traditional textile techniques.
I am very excited with this project, in combining manual low cost looms with technology to make this kind of developments accessible for everybody. I think that combining existing loom parts could make easier the design of my loom.
The loom design process is not starting from scratch.As we saw in previous sections, in this iteration I will focus on addressing the following technical specifications:
Determine the design and volume of the object, especially the support frame.
Verify the operation of the heddle lifting mechanism
Design and test the master and slave electronic boards of the control mechanisms that change the state of the heddles.
First drafts:
