12. Skin Electronics

What the week looked like

Last week I had a LOT of fun working on the loom. Never expected to get a much joy from weaving, but soon becoming a convert. Even though i had picked up something small and portable to make, looking at the cohort's amazong exploration of pushing the limits was nothing short of Jaw Dropping!

Having dwelled deeper into looms, and with India's heritage in Weaves, i am keen to see what this spark holds for me in the future. And this was an amazing note for me to enter the last week of taught assignments for Fabri.

Since this was the last week, and that too electronic heavy, nostalgia was running high and Shefali and me choose to work together, to also commemorate our journey so far!

Takeaways from Global Session

This week's session by Katia Vega was extremly interesting. My favourite takeaways from her session were the following questions that she urged for us to dwell upon for the week:

1. What role does skin play in our daily lives?
2. How do we interact with our Body?
3. Can your skin act as an interface?
4. Can skin be a canvas for elctronics?
5. Can skin become a medium for display?

Implementing in parts the conscious use of unconscious behaviours, Katia walked uss through various explorations in Beauty technology on the body surface like Conductive Makeup, Hairware, TechNails, FX e-makeup, Smart tattoos, Electronic bandages and Biocosmetics like Biosensor lipsticks.

Seeing how tech and electronics can be integrated at such everyday bodily levels was extemely intersting, and a lens i have not looked at before.

Checklist for the week

Personal thoughts and Ideas

Kae mentored us for this week's session for us and rephrased the larger topics that Katia Vega brought up, at a more doable scale. She asked us to look at the assignment through the lens of how we could augment our lives with Skin Electronics, by specifically designing with the CONTEXT of it's use, at the forefront.

This week, we didn't have lab support since a holiday was declared over the weekend, making it a long weekend, Shefali and me decided to work together at home; which was an EXCELLENT decision since this assignment isn't possible to be done alone single handedly!

Research & Inspiration

After the global session, i was really keen to see how the examples shown could be integrated into something that we already have here in India, which is a LOT of metal based JWELLERY! And to me, i assumed that the gem stones could be replaced by LEDs or other light sources. Because, in the end, the metaphorica BLING could actually be made LITERAL.

Since my personal practice has always looked at hands, i wanted to make something that could be worn there on the body. After a quick think, i shortlisted on making a Palm Cuff and a Wrist Cuff.

Palm Cuff designs are a new trend taking up space within the more traditional jwellery space as well, and i thought it would be intersting to test out a design for that.

Wrist Cuff designs have existed forever within the traditional jwellery space in India, also refered to as Bangles or Bracelets. I wanted to pick up something traditional and try explore a more modern design for this.

Apart from ONLY looking at these designe through the lens of Aesthetics, I also approached these locations on the body through the lense of Accessibility to a light with respect to Safety. In most content around looking at safety, it almost always involves the limbs and a portable light source!

Given more time and opportunity, i would also like to test out these Skin Circuits by attaching Light Sensors and Mini-Speakers.

Tools & Materials

TOOLS:

1. Wire Clipper
2. Cutter
3. Paper Glue
4. Scissors
5. Permanant marker

MATERIALS:

1. Copper Tape
2. 5mm LEDs
3. A4 Paper
4. Bandage roll
5. 3V Batteries
6. 3V Battery holder
7. 9V Battery
8. 9V Battery holder
9. Xiao RP2040 Seeed Studio
10. Soldering Station
11. Solder wire
12. Solder Flux
13. Tweezers

Work Flow:

Palm Cuff: Hand Accessory

Designing the Form

Once i decided on making a Palm Cuff, and knowing that the only material we could use was copper tapes; it was a pretty straightforward sketch.

For this Skin Circuit, I wanted to test a Parallel LED connection and that is how this design came about.

Once the sketch was done, I quickly went about cutting strips of paper and laying the design out and sticking the prtotype on my hands.

Making the Skin Circuit

With the prototype of the Palm Cuff ready, i quickly drew the circuit onto a piece of paper, and began to lay down copper tape on the design.

Once the tape was laid out, i clipped 6 red LEDs and layed them on the design. Delictely i began to stick each end of the LED to ensure the +ve and -ve ends were correctly placed under a new layer of copper tape.

Testing the Circuit

Now that the core circuit was laid out, it looked super cute and indo-western, with its copper and bright red colours. However i didn't want to get my hopes up high till the circuit switched on.

Since there were 6 LEDs, i checked online that i needed to use a 9V battery to power this.

Having spent a good part of the day making and calculating power requirements, seeing the cuff light up was worth it!

Watch this video on YouTube

Bandaging Circuit onto Skin

Making and testing the circuit was only half the job done, because to actually WEAR this reuired surgeon level of bandage cutting and application.

Since i ended up using 9V batteries which are relatively more bulky than 3V or 5V batteries, i decided to use Bandage rolls to hold it up on the skin.

I also used small strips of bandage to keep the paper + copper circuit in place, as well as to keep the wires of the 9V Battery holder in place.

Final look

This is what the Palm Cuff looks like...

And here it is in all its lit up glory!

Wrist Cuff: Arm Accessory

Designing the Form

Now that the first design was done and working, i decided to create a more explorative design pattern. Moreover, since i had already made a Parallel Circuit, i decided to make a Series Circuit for the Wrist Cuff.

Once the sketch was done, i quickly went about sticking the patern on a piece of paper wraapped around my hand (and not directly on my hand) this time.

Watch this video on YouTube

Making the Skin Circuit

Since i had a prototype, converting it into the exact design was pretty straightfoward, like the previous design.

After drawing out the circuit on paper, i laid down the copper tape and began attaching the clipped LEDs on to it very carefully, ensuring that the +ve and -ve alignments were correct.

For this design, i chose 2 green and 2 light green LEDs for this, for a purely aesthetic reason to have a bit of variation from the first design.

Testing the Circuit

The copper tapes with the 4 green LEDs looked super interesting, but i wanted to be sure they worked before i got too happy about them.

Once they lit up, even though the light green doesn't show up in the daylight, it does show up when the lighta are turned off.

Bandaging Circuit onto Skin

Like the previous design, i directly attacked the bandage roll and used it to attach the 9V Battery first, follwed by using small strips of bandage to secure the wires and edges.

Final look

This is how the Wrist Cuff looks...

And this is it lit up in all its glory!

Choker: Neck Accessory

Designing the Form

We realised that our exploratations NEEDED to use a Micro-Controller as a mandate, so we decided to do this exploration together, with technical assisatance from Akhilesh, our Lab Tech.

For this iteration, based on our learnings from the past exxercises, i wanted to make a Choker.

Making the Skin Circuit

I designed the layout on a Blue card paper (to contrtast with the copper tones of the copper tape) and got to cutting the form. Once done, i started laying out the copper tape to build the circuit.

Once the tape was laid out, i clipped the LEDs and marked the +ve and -ve sides with Posca Markers. After that, we laid out the LEDs in their correct positions to now begin connecting the micoro-controller.

Attaching the Xiao Microcontroller

1. The pins on the microcontroller and ground pins were marked
2. The copper wires laid out on the card paper were connected to the Xiao by Soldering wire connections
3. The Xioa was connected to the Lab Computer with the installed [Library] (https://wiki.seeedstudio.com/XIAO-RP2040/) to trigger the Blink Function on the Choker.

// Arduino code for controlling 3 LEDs on the Seeed Studio RP2040 board

// Define GPIO pins for the LEDs
const int ledPins[] = {D2, D3, D4}; // Replace these with the GPIO pins you're using
const int numLeds = sizeof(ledPins) / sizeof(ledPins[0]);

// Function to turn off all LEDs
void allOff() {
  for (int i = 0; i < numLeds; i++) {
    digitalWrite(ledPins[i], LOW);
  }
}

// Function to blink LEDs in sequence (1, 2, 3)
void blinkInSequence(int delayMs) {
  for (int i = 0; i < numLeds; i++) {
    digitalWrite(ledPins[i], HIGH); // Turn on the current LED
    delay(delayMs);                // Wait for the delay
    digitalWrite(ledPins[i], LOW); // Turn off the current LED
  }
}

// Function to turn all LEDs on
void allOn(int delayMs) {
  for (int i = 0; i < numLeds; i++) {
    digitalWrite(ledPins[i], HIGH);
  }
  delay(delayMs);
}

// Function to turn off LEDs in reverse sequence (3, 2, 1)
void offInReverseSequence(int delayMs) {
  for (int i = numLeds - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
    digitalWrite(ledPins[i], LOW); // Turn off the current LED
    delay(delayMs);               // Wait for the delay
  }
}

void setup() {
  // Initialize all LED pins as output
  for (int i = 0; i < numLeds; i++) {
    pinMode(ledPins[i], OUTPUT);
    digitalWrite(ledPins[i], LOW); // Ensure all LEDs are off initially
  }
}

void loop() {
  blinkInSequence(300); // Blink LEDs in sequence with a 300ms delay
  allOn(1000);          // Turn all LEDs on for 1 second
  offInReverseSequence(300); // Turn off LEDs in reverse sequence with a 300ms delay
  delay(500);           // Pause before the next cycle
}

Testing the Circuit

When we tested the circuit, the LEDs blinked!! However, not all of them were blinking.

We realised that it was because the circut needed more power than our 3V battery. So we created a Customised setup to fix two 3V batteries.

2 coin batteries were joined with copper tape strips and sealed in black wire tape to ensure stability. With this new addition, all the LEDs worked and we were ready to put this circuit on the skin.

Final look

For this iteration, we took the assistance of our student Payal to model this piece for us. After removing excess card paper from the Choker circuit, all we had to do was to attach the ends of the card to each other.

This was a learning from the previous iterations, to be able to create a lightweight circuit that could be hosted on the design itself.

And this is how the Choker looks....

And this is how the Final Choker looks

Working together

Shefali and me worked together figuring out details of each others design, circuits, bandaging and modelling together.

She chose to make a modular design that could be worn in muliple ways! She modelled for it wearing it around her Neck and the Ankle.

This is a snippet of the process and the design but the detials are best looked at on Shefali's amazing website

Learnings

1. This week, we didn't have lab support since a holiday was declared over the weekend, making it a long weekend, Shefali and me decided to work together at home; which was an EXCELLENT decision since this assignment isn't possible to be done alone single handedly! It took one pair of hands to Model the Skin Electronics (Shefali) and another pair of hands to setup the electronics, bandage the battery and document (me). This is also the last weekly assignmet that we would get to do togther, so it was a bittersweet day spent together.

2. While making the first circuit, despite checking it multiple times, i couldn't figure out what was wrong. Since we didn't have any lab help, i had to call in the big guns and sent a photo of the circuit to my dad, who immediately recognised the issue. I had very nively, kept the copper tape running continuously under the LED lights. Now, ideally someone with experience in making circuits could understand this very quickly. But a noob like me, needed someone to point out the practicality of making circuits. Will remember this for a lifetime!

3. hile connecting the LEDs, i realised that when the legs were split, the LEDs took too much space on the cuffs. We borrowed a wire clipper from Shefali's Dad, who has an arsnel of evrerythin imaginable, and went away clipping the LED legs. That was extremly satisfying! However, before clipping, i checked the LEDs and removed the ones that weren't working. I also marked the +ve leg of the clipped LEDs with a yellow posca marker to label which leg goes where in the design. This was extremely CRITICAL!

4. Once the circuits were done, Shefali and me also struggled with figuring out the battery needed to power our circuits. A quick ChatGPT helped us figure that we were using the wrong power. However, it took us trial and error to figure out which battery to use, based on the limited electronics we had with us. Lesson learnt, to always plan out the number of LEDs and the Power needed BEFORE designing!!

5. Connecting the wires of the 9V battery to teh very flimsy copper tapes was a task in itself. The connection would suddenly break or stop working at times, giving us major heartache as to how to solve for it. However, knowing that we were on the right track, and that the LEDs did light up the first time and not the tenth time, made us a lot more patient and consistent when working with wires. I really did miss not being able to solder this week, especially beacuse of the pain of flimsy wired connections.

6. No one prepared me for what the battery mounted on skin would look like! This is precisely why i have kept an entire section in my documentation showing the details of the surgeon like bandaing i did on my model. For the next time, i will keep myself prepared with more varities of bandages, though i prefer the skin colourd bandages over the clear ones.

7. Getting to work with the Xiao in a Lab setting brought immense learnings on how workflow for Electronic heavy projects should be, since we did all previous assignments from home. We also got to solder parts of the Xiao circuit under guidance and it was extremely exciting. I would love to play more with the oppportunities that soldering brings.

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People to thank for this week:

Dad: who solved the circuit problem for me in a split second while going ahead and making fun of me for not know this, to begin with; i will have to be reaady for dad joke on this in the future

Shefali's Dad: whose supplies we raided whenever our electronics kit was missing something; his stock of tools is unmateched

Shefali: my hand model, my friend and my support system throughout these long weeks of assignments; without her, i wouldn't have been able to do these assignments alone

Akhilesh: who held our hand through the Xiao circuit building and assisting us with th Library installation for the Blink code

This week in emojis:

🫠🥲🫣🤔🤨🥵🧐🫡🥹😅