5. E-textiles¶

RESEARCH & IDEATION¶

ANOUK WIPPRECHT¶

When watching the lecture, the first thing that came to my mind about wearable technology was Anouk’s work. I’ve followed her on Instagram for many years now and I’ve always wondered how se did all those cool designs, like they’re alive and have each one have its own personality. So yeah…pretty much I got to understand her work way better now and that’s so great!!!

Anouk Website

AL BAHAR TOWERS RESPONSIVE FACADE / AEDAS¶

The second thing that came to my mind as an architect is Kinetic Architecture. Which is basically building with moving objects without impacting the structure itself. Why? Because in e-textiles you could even make a piece that opens or closes depending on the weather. Just like this building! It’s like big scale to small scale, this project I chose is in Abu Dhabi and in such an extreme weather the façade closes and opens changing incidences angles in response to sun exposure. That’s amazing for me, it blows my mind, so…clothes could work the same way…

Al bahar

REFERENCES & INSPIRATION¶

From the beginning I knew I wanted to make a glove or something similar…

COLOR MIXING LED BRACELET BY PUSH_RESET

This project made very clear to me how soft circuits work and how to build one thanks to the documentation, so this was my starting point to know what I was supposed to do jajajaja

IMGs credits

TOMAS BAQUERO

I found it really interesting how he designed the glove and from him I took where he placed the sensor!

IMGs credits

BARBARA RAKOVSKA

I was looking at gloves-like projects for inspiration about what to do but this project was so playful and gave me a starting point and it was that maybe not a glove but more a like a bracelet!!!

IMGs credits

Tools¶

PROCESS¶

1. LEARN THE BASICS¶

First, UNDERSTAND!!! I’m deeply impressed by the global lecture. All the concepts and theory were incredibly clear, I wasn’t familiar with electronics, but Nuria made everything so clear it felt so easy to understand. Also, special thanks to Dani at the FabLab he explained incredibly well and was super dedicated to all of us, his excitement was contagious, and we were having so much fun at class learning the basics of circuits that I didn’t even realize I didn’t go for a coffee in the whole day ;)

Why is Resistance Important?

Well..pretty much if you don’t want to make a short circuit, because when the current flow is too strong it can be a bit dangerous, and we can even damage important parts in our circuit which can even lead to a fire.

2. YOUR NEW BEST FRIENDS¶

I’m glad to introduce you to your new best friends. It’s very important to get familiar and comfortable with using the tools.

The First one is the MULTIMETER

The second one is the BREADBOARD

The third one is the POWER SUPPLY

3. DIGITAL CIRCUIT¶

Baby Steps

This whole adventure was like when you’re a baby and first you crawl, then stand up by yourself, then walk and finally you can run and jump around. So, from the start we made a pretty basic circuit using the breadboard to turn a light on using a button.

It was really funny because at the beginning I didn’t connect them well and it kinda worked… but backwards hahaha

So, I put the wires in the right place and then the light turned on when I pressed the button instead of being on all the time and then turning off when I pressed the button haha I knew it was suspicious that the battery was feeling warmer and warmer…

“This is going to be your new life motto”

4. HEART¶

With the previous concepts cleared I made a little something, and I liked the idea of a light inside a heart! So that’s the whole inspiration from now on love It’s nice to think love can be found everywhere, and it comes first from within us, we can find it in family, friends, partners, places, things, and even in the most simple and small things in life, so why not? Let’s find love in a circuit!!!

ANALOGUE CIRCUIT¶

Already understood the previous concepts about building circuits and making a digital circuit, we were ready to build our analogue circuit!!! So now we're using resistance to create a range of values for the circuit:

Here you can see the video of it working...FINALLY!!!

5. SOFT SENSOR¶

Now is time to use Arduino and do a 'project' with what we've learnt so far...So following the 'heart' theme, while talking with Dani who was the one helping us with the circuits we came with a really good idea for the coding part! It would be really cool as I'm making a bracelet that ir you shake hands (pressure in the sensor) the heart beats faster showing you get "nervous".

Now that we have an idea, it's time to make it happen! Look! At first I was able to make it blink but it didn't go faster if I pressed it harder :(

With Dani's help and using what I learned in coding classes from school seven years ago, I decided the best approach was to use an if() else() conditional to tell the Arduino that under X pressure, the heartbeat would pulse at X speed. After several tries, it finally worked!

CODE¶

Here you can see the Arduino Code ¹ I used to make my heart beat ;)

int ledPin = 12;       
int velostatPin = 9;  
int velostatReading;   
int blinkSpeed = 500; 

void setup() {
  pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);    
  Serial.begin(9600);         
}

void loop() {
  // Read the Velostat sensor value
  velostatReading = analogRead(velostatPin);

  // Print the sensor reading to the Serial Monitor for debugging
  Serial.print("Velostat Reading: ");
  Serial.println(velostatReading);

  // Adjust blink speed based on pressure applied to Velostat
  if (velostatReading > 500) {
    blinkSpeed = 700; // Faster blink if Velostat is pressed
  } else {
    blinkSpeed = 300; // Slower blink when not pressed
  }

  // Blink the LED with the current blink speed
  digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);  
  delay(blinkSpeed);           
  digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);  
  delay(blinkSpeed);           
}

Fabrication files¶

File: Arduino Code ↩