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5. E-textiles

Introduction

CircuitSofts

CircuitSofts modules

Motivation

Motivation and previous work

From top row, left to right: Drum pads (Zendrum), Druming softwares (GarageBand iOS) and Circuit-BLocks (Educationa Approach) From bottom row, left to right: Previous prototypes: Button pad (digital), CNC Drum pad (analog), Button pad (educational experience)

One thing is play pad drums, but another pleasure is design your own instrument. For me this week is like a lifechange on the way I can design portable electronic percussion. Wereable? Maybe in the next weeks.

Process

Button module

Rapid prototype.

After talking with Nuria, I decided to start trying with cheap materials, and with fast and easy tests, so I choosed:

  • Aluminum foil as conductive material
  • Yute fabric as membrane (since is natural and with holes)
  • Lino (because I like it, and had some)

All the layers joined by machine embriodery, beacuse I'm interested on possible scaling and parametric production.

So it came my first (hidden) mistake: Using makey makey as conductive tester. Testing with that board is not guaranted, because it detects as conductive materials, some that doestn't work with other boards (and common conductivity standars).

And guess what? Yute fabric is one of these materials. I think, since is a natural fabric it remains some biological conductivity, enough for being detected by makey cops.

Then the second (showed) mistake happened, I did embriodery touching some sandwich area, so I transform my button into a perfect cable. At the end I made two failed buttons, and a functional one using a better membrane and watching carefully the embriodery area.

Cable module

With my previous experience, I decided to go for the cables, What can go wrong? The answer is not fun, but maybe sad, because the only thing is that I wasted some material, because I expected to get seven cables, but the embriodery margins only allowed me to make five. "Luis, life is not controlled as you may think"

LED module

Now this is fun, and for me "introspectional" too. My lesson: "Luis, maybe all of your life problems, are just because you always want to unfollow the recipe"

I know leds, with all his polarity problems, I knew that the led I choosed has a plastic cover, I sand it, and test the led again, three times. I prepared the embriodery sandwich.

Ok, this is too much easy, lets change "some thing", why not try satin stitching style... Why not? Please review my remarcable learnings at the end.

Pressure sensors and resistor modules

Here the mistake was months ago, I tough all this time, I have well stored some velostat. Guess what? I not only did not find the material, I also invest hours of valuable time, trying to find in the whole Fab Lab Yucatán aka "Old and Big heneken warehouse" and trying to find a substitute material, with lots of electronic package materials (Now I have idea of all the diversity of that) At the end, after wathching the video that Rico posted on Mattermost, I could knew that I can use that weird component, this time well located (force sensor). I know is not the ideal exercise sensor, but the velostat is now coming at the "Mercado libre" velocity.

But, hey, the sensor works Amazing!

Microblocks Code

There is a lema that in coding there are not mistakes, but only opportunities, So, I have to say that since I knew MicroBlocks, if I can use it, I will.

I mean Arduino is great also, but for rapid prototypes and learning aproach, this block coding system works great.

Please, check the remarcable tools for more information. And in case you want to MicroBLocks on Xiao, check out my Hackster publication in this hyperlink.

Remarcable learnings

Observations and ideas
  1. Previous experiencies embriodering various materials, like this mosquitero net, was an inspiration about how to integrate conductive materials with machine embriodery approaches.
  2. Previous experiences with block coding for physical computing is a motivation for developing learning materials and experiences.
  3. Got some inspiration and oniric ilumination, of some possible shapes for the modules.
  4. Temporaly, I used this big hole size because it was the available one. But I'm currently looking for another option, like snap buttons.

Broken stuff
  1. Testing conductivity with a makey makey led me to a mistake, because with that board, smaller conductivity can be detected as standar conductivity. But also my apparently success led me to feel strong motivated for the next modules.
  2. It is like obvious, but Satin style embriodery may cut (and interrupt) the conductive materials, or at least thath happened with my aluminum foil.
  3. Trying to have a good conecction can be messy with this button hole system.
  4. Is importan to think in the use of the product, I was having more clear in the process, at one point I though it can be an horror prop or device, ideal for this month.

Remarcable Tools

Remarcable tools

Coding

Manufacturing

Documenting