5. E-textiles¶
Research¶
This week we started working on e-textiles ! a very fascinating opening into this field of textile and electronics, I'm very passionate about the possibilities for weaving these techologies. In relation to my creative methodologies for colective and performantive processes. Specifically, I'd like to focus my experimentation on weaving this processes with more-than-human entities such as soil and water, breaking the boundaries between organic and inorganic life.
Laura Tripaldi in her book Parallel Minds, connects the thoughts of different philosophers and archeologists around ideas of software and weaving as ancestral knowledge. Also, a knowledge that's closely related to the female gender. Linda Hurcombe describes as the 'missing majority' all technology related to organic material sources that isn't recorded on the stablished history of human kind evolution, regarding pre-hitoric researches, and the great lost of accountability of these technologies in our trajectory as relational beings in this Earth. While Elishabeth Wayland Barber researches textile and weaving history, which Laura Tripaldi connects to the missing majority from a feminist perspective. Lastly, Sadie Plant in her book Ceros + Unos, relates weaving and knitting to nowadays electronic and computational technologies, and how they are based on the same principle: soft technologies and softwares, both are operations/intructions/programs, that are able to develop an abstract process thoughtout a material substrate.
I am fascinated by these researches and explorations, from the semantics of the word soft, from the feminist research on weaving technology and the relation to the missing majority and organical sources of production; being connected to electronics from a young age thanks to my father, and personally being passionate on textiles, merging these fields of knowledge suits my current research and pushes my explorations.
Perishable Material Culture in Prehistory, Linda M.Hurcombe
Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times, Elishabeth Wayland Barber
Paralel Minds, Laura Tripaldi.
This week I want to star a line of research and experimentation inside my project, where I connect the data colection of the soil moisture to the Hz frecuency of sound and of our bodies. My aim is that from the data the moisture sensor is collecting, this gets translated into sound. I would program the data into diferrent Hz frecuencies that get translated into midi notes of an harmony.
Notes¶
Some important notes for this lesson would be: · Vocabulary list by Liza Stark
· Ohm law , V=IxR
V, Voltage. I, Current. R, Resistance
Whis this formula, we can canculate the correct amount of charge given the resistance we have, or we can calculate the Resistance we need given the Voltage of our power source and how much we need for our output device.
· We can work with Digital or Analog instructions for our circuits.
Digital works with Binary code (0111001), while Analog can range on infinitude of possibilites between the minimum or maximum of our output.
For example, Digital would be when we have an ON/OFF command for our output, and Analog would be when we have a presure sensor that makes our output variate depending on the intensity of the input, being multiple the posibilities, (fading).
· We can work with "hard to soft" connexions, and this can be permanent (by souldering) or detachable connexions (with any kind of removable connexion, for example a metallic press button).
· !! On a LED light, the longer leg is the anode (positive), while the shorter one is the cathode (negative).
· We work with a microcontroller, for example: Arduino, to send digital or analog instructions to our e-textiles and circuits. The microcontroler is the in-between the input and output. In Arduino we have Power pins, 5 or 3,3V, GND pins = ground (-), and Digital or Analong pins. Analog are only the PWM or ~.
References & Inspiration¶
HYBRID BODY LAB _ WOVEN BOT
Robotic Barrier Construction through Weaved, Inflatable Tubes In this project, HYBRID BODY LAB investigate the use of extruded tubes weaved around existing environmental features to quickly assemble light-duty barriers, e.g. against wind or snow. By extruded tubes, they are referring to the recent advancement in ‘vine-robots’ where everted, flexible polymer tubes can be inflated several meters out from their deployment mechanism.
Tools ⚙¶
- Raspberry Pi Fundation
- Tinkercad
- Ardublock
- Stainless steal - Conductive thread
- Conductive thread made of stainless steel
- [Velostat]
Process and workflow¶
I started working on creating a soft circuit with a soft press button for a LED light. To then start working with Arduino, to get familiarize with the program I worked with some simple on/off digital and analog codes. My research for this week is with the humidity sensor, to receive analog instrucitons to be translated into soudns outputs.
Code Examples¶
Digital instructions¶
First i played around the blinking light
//*blink light_01
* I turn on a led and I turn it off
*/
int led_pin = 7; //define the pin where the Led is connected
void setup() {
pinMode(7, HIGH); //define pin of the Led as an output
}
void loop() {
digitalWrite(7, HIGH); //turn the Led on
delay(600); //wait 600millisecond
digitalWrite(7, LOW); //turn the Led off
delay(600); //wait 600millisecond
}
//*blink light_02
* I turn on a led and I turn it off at different speeds
*/
int led_pin = 7; //define the pin where the Led is connected
void setup() {
pinMode(7, HIGH); //define pin of the Led as an output
}
void loop() {
digitalWrite(7, HIGH); //turn the Led on
delay(600); //wait 600millisecond
digitalWrite(7, LOW); //turn the Led off
delay(600); //wait 600millisecond
digitalWrite(7, HIGH); //turn the Led on
delay(200); //wait 600millisecond
digitalWrite(7, LOW); //turn the Led off
delay(200); //wait 600millisecond
digitalWrite(7, HIGH); //turn the Led on
delay(200); //wait 600millisecond
digitalWrite(7, LOW); //turn the Led off
delay(200); //wait 600millisecond
digitalWrite(7, HIGH); //turn the Led on
delay(1000); //wait 600millisecond
digitalWrite(7, LOW); //turn the Led off
delay(1000); //wait 600millisecond
digitalWrite(7, HIGH); //turn the Led on
delay(1000); //wait 600millisecond
digitalWrite(7, LOW); //turn the Led off
delay(1000); //wait 600millisecond
digitalWrite(7, HIGH); //turn the Led on
delay(1000); //wait 600millisecond
digitalWrite(7, LOW); //turn the Led off
delay(1000); //wait 600millisecond
digitalWrite(7, HIGH); //turn the Led on
delay(1000); //wait 600millisecond
digitalWrite(7, LOW); //turn the Led off
delay(1000); //wait 600millisecond
digitalWrite(7, HIGH); //turn the Led on
delay(200); //wait 600millisecond
digitalWrite(7, LOW); //turn the Led off
delay(200); //wait 600millisecond
digitalWrite(7, HIGH); //turn the Led on
delay(200); //wait 600millisecond
digitalWrite(7, LOW); //turn the Led off
delay(200); //wait 600millisecond
}
Then i learnt how to introduce a button to turn off the ligh:
/* Automatización para Todos
* www.automatizacionparatodos.com
*
* Como utilizar un botón con arduino
*
* EJEMPLO 01
*
* Ejemplo para encender y apagar un LED con un botón.
*
*/
// Crear variables para el manejo de los pines
int pinLED = 9;
int pinBoton = 2;
// Crear variable para estado del botón
bool boton = LOW;
void setup() {
// Configuración de los pines de entrada y salida
pinMode(pinLED,OUTPUT); // Salida digital para el LED
pinMode(pinBoton,INPUT); // Entrada digital para el botón
}
void loop() {
// Leer el estado del botón y encender o apagar el LED
boton = digitalRead(pinBoton);
if(boton == HIGH){ // Si el botón está pulsado
digitalWrite(pinLED,HIGH); // Enciende el LED
}
else{ // Si no
digitalWrite(pinLED,LOW); // Apaga el LED
}
}
Analog instructions¶
Then moving into Analog intructions, fading the light would be an easy example to experiment with,, important to remember to change the pin led to a PWM one:
/*
Fade - part of the Examples of Arduino IDE
This example shows how to fade an LED on pin 11 using the analogWrite()
function.
The analogWrite() function uses PWM, so if you want to change the pin you're
using, be sure to use another PWM capable pin. On most Arduino, the PWM pins
are identified with a "~" sign, like ~3, ~5, ~6, ~9, ~10 and ~11.
This example code is in the public domain.
http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Fade
*/
int led = 9; // the PWM pin the LED is attached to
int brightness = 255; // how bright the LED is
int fadeAmount = 150; // how many points to fade the LED by
// the setup routine runs once when you press reset:
void setup() {
// declare pin 9 to be an output:
pinMode(9, 255);
}
// the loop routine runs over and over again forever:
void loop() {
// set the brightness of pin 9:
analogWrite(9, 255);
// change the brightness for next time through the loop:
brightness = brightness + fadeAmount;
// reverse the direction of the fading at the ends of the fade:
if (brightness <= 0 || brightness >= 255) {
fadeAmount = -fadeAmount;
}
// wait for 30 milliseconds to see the dimming effect
delay(1000);
// fade:
analogWrite(9, 150);
// wait for 30 milliseconds to see the dimming effect
delay(1000);
}
Humidity sensor¶
Results¶
Video¶
From Vimeo¶
Sound Waves from George Gally (Radarboy) on Vimeo.