11. Open Source Hardware - From Fibers to Fabric¶
What the week looked like¶
Since this week didn't have a specific material list to procure, we had been in talks with our localmentors about the potential objects we would be working on. And eaverything considered, we wanted to work on making a weaving loom, since that is something that we do not have in our labs, and could be a good value addition.
We also have students interested in weaving and crochet. And every year a cohort of students led by me, visit our sibling school in Kutch, Somaiya Kala Vidya; where we learn printing & weaving techniques from the artists over a period of 5 days.
I leave for the annual trip in a fortnight i wanted to make something to show the students and the artists about our explorations at Fabri and look for way forwards in trying to collaborate with them in the near future.
Takeaways from Global Session¶
Checklist for the week¶
Personal thoughts and Ideas¶
To begin with, I have no official training in weaving. As a kid, i have seen my grandmum and mom knitting and crocheting. I did try my had at knitting when i was a kid but never really took it on.
Last year i bought 2 bamboo lamps and attempted to weave between the structure, but that personal project paused and is locked up in some cuoboard gathering dust.
On our visit to Kuctch weavers, we spend an entire day witnessing the actual process of going from fibre to thread. And it is super intense and laborious and a LOT of work. This day is usually my least favourite day on the trip since ALL of this hardwork seems to need an entire ecosystem to function and it is too inaccessible for me.
Sensing this pattern of labour intensiveness, infrastructure and time investment, i really wanted to solve this for myself. As much as i am awed by weaving, it never was something i could see myself doing.
So this week, i looked at the 2 things that could excite me.
Firstly, i wanted something small and portable, which wouldn't take up a lot of space and setup. I also realised, with a smaller loom, i could only make smaller pieces, which is IDEAL for ME, since the magnitude of time commitment drastically reduces!
Secondly, i wanted to be able to weave with materials that wern't typically woven with. Ever since the Bio-Materials module, i have been itching to find ways of experimenting with human hair. Some of the materials i imagined i should be able to weave with on my mini loom could be Human Hair, Wire, Conductive thread (could i weave my own conductive fabric!!) and Paper.
This video showed how i could convert my hair into fibre and i plan to attempt this soon enough. I have also been looking at works of Human Hair Studio by Studio Savine who have created some brilliant works from weaving & knitting human hair.
Research & Inspiration¶
I began my research, as every designer does, from Pinterest. I had scanned through all the past Fabri Alumni works and everything was so highly innovative, that as amazed as i was, i really wanted to keep the loom simple in every possible way, so as to reduce the amount of friction to weave in the first place.
My research (doom scrolling) helped me figure out the sort of outcomes that i found intersting; which were smaller beautiful patches!
During my research, i also realised that there were SOO MANY possible ways to weave, be it the technique or the loom innovation, that i found it hard to figure out which one is it that i wanted to work on.
So i did what i usually remind my students to do; to not solve this loom for eveyone, but to begin by what i wanted to learn to be able to do. And knowing my knack for all thing DIY, i knew i am up for figuring out how to make anything tactile; i decided to make a loom that could accomodate every style of weaving that i liked on Pintrest!
AS ti turns out, there was again an obvious pattern of things that i was liking; Mini Looms and Grid loom boards (which let you personalise it for any shape).
Based on these key facets of what my loom needs to be, i have come up with 2 design styles of looms, that i have thoroughly enjoyed weaving on this week.
Softwares, Tools & Materials¶
SOFTWARES:¶
- Autodesk AutoCAD
TOOLS:¶
- Laser Cutter
MATERIALS:¶
- 5mm Transparent Acryllic Sheet
- 3mm Transparent Acryllic Sheet
- 3mm Neon Transparent Acryllic Sheet (optional)
- Jute rope
Work Flow:¶
Choosing the Material¶
Once i had clarity on the materials or rather fibres i was wanting to use for weaving, i had to next select the material to make the loom with.
We had options of choosing from ply, mdf, local wood and acryllic. And i wanted to work on the Laser cutter for these designs. So the winning choice was very straignforward.
Ply, MDF anf local wood would have burnt edges and would require a LOT of treatment post laser cutting, hence they wern'r efficent for fast prototyping for the week. Moreover, the material thickness available in the lab were not conducive to be laser cut efficiently on the lab lasercutting machine.
The choice for acrycllic as a material was heavily functional, apart from being being aesthetic. There would be no black edges or splinters that could damage the weaving thread. And the laser cutter could easily work on upto 8mm thickness for cutting, which made this the best option mogin forward.
3mm Mini Loom¶
Designing¶
I started on AutoCAD with a base dimension of a 6cm square for the mini-square loom and dimensions of 6cm by 12cm for the mini-rectangle loom.
Even though these are tiny looms to begin with, i wanted to offer different permitations and combinations within these as well. I would imagine, that if i wanted to weave the hair i shed over a week, i would have a smaller length of thread to weave with; and if i were to weave using this after a month, i would have a longer thread.
Hence having the freedom to play around with the woven piece proportions based on the length of thread i had at the moment, was a possibility i wanted to have in the design.
Along with loom frame, i also made designs for the other pieces used during weaivng, including needles, comb and bobbins.
Laser Cutting¶
It was brought to my attention, that if hair is something i wanted to weave, it would have some elasticity in comparison to say a cotton thread. Hence, considering the size and proportion of my loom, i decided to go for a 3mm Transparent Acryllic for this iteration.
However, before cutting the final pieces, i did a test cut on waste 3ply corrugated to check the feasability of the design. This was a deliberate choice, since i didn't want to create unnecesary waste from acryllic.
I made a few edits to the drawing and refined details and then composed a tightly nested design for laser cutting. The loom with all its parts could be accomodated within 18cm by 15cm approximately.
It took around 10mins to lasercut these pieces and they looked so cute, that i was swayed to cut these into a spare acrylic sheet, so i could gift it.
And this is how the pieces look, after a quick wash and air dry (just to ensure there is no soot that catches on the thread during weaving).
Weaving¶
At first I attemped an edge to egde weave on the mini-square loom using jute rope that i had lying at home. It seemed like a similar texture and thickness to what i would imagine weaving with hair thread could be. It took me a few tries to figure out how to weave and below is the timelapse of the process.
Here is a timelapse of me weaving on the Square Mini Loom
Once i got the hang of it, i also wanted to test the loom for weaving on the mid-loom edges that i had put in the design. So i tried weaving on the mini-rectangle loom, while also testing if the material could take the pulling stress (which it did).
Video: timelapse
It took me about an hour to finish weaving each of these.
Image: weave on square + rectangle loom
Woven Pieces¶
Having never completed a piece before, i didn't know how to remove the piece from the loom! I was given a great tip to use thin crochet needles to remove it and manuver the weave to one edge and tie off the other end.
This is what the woven pieces look like.
Image: finished square + rectangle
5mm Grid Loom¶
Designing¶
Even though i was designing both the looms simultaneously, i was constantly trying to figure out the differnces of use case between the two designs.
I started on AutoCAD with a base dimension of 6cm by 12cm for the grid loom. And i wanted to ensure that all possible shapes could be acoomodated within this mini grid loom. So, i laid out possibilities of circular weaving as well.
Along with loom frame, i also made designs for the other pieces used during weaivng, including vertical pins, needles, comb, bobbins and bands for various combinations of usecase.
Laser Cutting¶
This part was quite straightforward. Like the previous design, i tested the design on a 5ply corrugated first to ensure the parts worked.
I edited parts of the drawing to modify the design in places and created a tightly nested drawing. All the pieces fit in 45cm by 16cm approximately.
It took about 20mins to cut these pieces. And this is how the pieces look, after a quick wash and air dry (just to ensure there is no soot that catches on the thread during weaving).
Design Details¶
Knowing that i only wanted to use one material across the design, i created square hole grids (instead of the usual round hole grids) and designed for the 5mm by 5mm acryllic pins to fit exactly within the cross-section.
Image: grids + pins to fit
I also designed modules to accomodate fitting the pins so they doNOT fall through.
Image: grids + pins doNOT fall
Details to ensure that the loom could be inclined at an angle to ensure more ergonomic weaving angles if needed.
Image: loom incline 2 options
And details to raise the loom at an angle to personalise it for comfort based weaving, while it rests on a surface.
Image: loom raised
And finally, bringing all these together and allowing for raising the loom while weaving on the grid pins.
Image: loom raised and pins do not fall
Here is a detailed demo video of how these kit of parts work.
Video: demo of parts
Weaving¶
Coming soon
Woven Pieces¶
Coming soon
Learnings¶
My learnings this week were around Laser cutting acryllic, since i hadn't worked in this scale of number of pieces before.
I learnt that as important as it is to tightly nest the drawing, it is also important to understand the behaviour of the material you are working with.
As it turned out, my very tightly nested drawings with over lap edges got cut supremely quickly, however with slightly deformed edges and details. Because when you melt plastic, that does tend to happen!!
Next thing i realised was, that the sheer impact of the laser and the cutting, the tiny pieces jump and hence the presumable flat surface of acryllic aka Plastic deforms a bit and leads to NOT precise cutting when nested too close.
For the next time, i will nest my drawing tighly, but if cutting on acryllic, will leave a small tiny gap between the pieces to avoid inacuracies.
BoM example¶
Materials¶
| Qty | Description | Price | Link | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Material one | 22.00 $ | http://amazon.com/test | order now |
| 1 | Material two | 22.00 $ | http://amazon.com/test | find alternative |
| 1 | Material three | 22.00 $ | http://amazon.com/test |
People to thank for this week¶
Shefali: for the hot tip to use a tiny crochet needle to take the woven piece off the loom!
My TY Students: for not hating on me for having booked the only working laser cutter for all of Saturday, when they needed to finsih work for their Jury submision on Monday
This week in emojis:¶
Research & Ideation¶
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."
weekly assignment
Check out the weekly assignment here or login to your NuEval progress and evaluation page.
about your images..delete the tip!!
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Remember to credit/reference all your images to their authors. Open source helps us create change faster together, but we all deserve recognition for what we make, design, think, develop.
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remember to resize and optimize all your images. You will run out of space and the more data, the more servers, the more cooling systems and energy wasted :) make a choice at every image :)
This image is optimised in size with resolution 72 and passed through tinypng for final optimisation. Remove tips when you don't need them anymore!
get inspired!
Check out and research alumni pages to betetr understand how to document and get inspired
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OS Loom - Kae Nagano - Fab Lab Kamakura
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The pattern machine - Marion Guillaud - LeTextileLab Lyon
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Shopbot Hack - Painting machine Asli Aksan - Textile Lab Amsterdam
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Prusa - Pegboard - Viviane Labelle - EchoFab
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Final project - Pauline Gamore
Add your fav alumni's pages as references
References & Inspiration¶
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."
- Two images side-by-side
Tools¶
BoM example¶
Materials¶
| Qty | Description | Price | Link | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Material one | 22.00 $ | http://amazon.com/test | order now |
| 1 | Material two | 22.00 $ | http://amazon.com/test | find alternative |
| 1 | Material three | 22.00 $ | http://amazon.com/test |
Process¶
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."
My sketches are ...
This model 1 was obtained by..
The design 2 was created using..
footnote fabrication files
Fabrication files are a necessary element for evaluation. You can add the fabrication files at the bottom of the page and simply link them as a footnote. This was your work stays organised and files will be all together at the bottom of the page. Footnotes are created using [ ^ 1 ] (without spaces, and referenced as you see at the last chapter of this page) You can reference the fabrication files to multiple places on your page as you see for footnote nr. 2 also present in the Gallery.
Code Example¶
Use the three backticks to separate code.
// the setup function runs once when you press reset or power the board
void setup() {
// initialize digital pin LED_BUILTIN as an output.
pinMode(LED_BUILTIN, OUTPUT);
}
// the loop function runs over and over again forever
void loop() {
digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, HIGH); // turn the LED on (HIGH is the voltage level)
delay(1000); // wait for a second
digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, LOW); // turn the LED off by making the voltage LOW
delay(1000); // wait for a second
}
Gallery¶
Video¶
From Vimeo¶
Sound Waves from George Gally (Radarboy) on Vimeo.