5. E-textiles¶
Inspiration¶
Project Primrose: Adobe's digital dress which can change patterns.¶
I have always thought this dress is amazing. I would LOVE to be able to create something like it, or at least something that can change in some visual way as this dress does.
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Finnish textile artist Maija Lavonen¶
I was lucky enough to see Fiber-optic-based art pieces created by Finnish textile artist Maija Lavonen, at the “Quietly Monumental” exhibition, Architecture and Design Museum in Helsinki, Finland, in spring 2025. She was a professor at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki and was named Textile Artist of the Year in 1996.
I know these are not e-textiles, but I think that playing with fiber optics can inspire making garments for the body. I would like to try to do some weaving with fiber optics somehow for fashion effects as Maija does. While this inspiration does not exactly fit this assignment, I think the effects she gets can really inspire fashion looks.
Maija has created pieces for interior spaces including Finland’s Parliament House and the Ministry of the Interior in Helsinki. Textile on Three Surfaces is displayed in the waiting room of the Speaker’s Office in the Parliament House, and Nature as the Source is in the second-floor lobby of the Ministry of the Interior, where it often serves as a backdrop for media interviews.
She developed a technique to combine handwoven wide ribbons into large textile artworks, often featuring light. In Corridor of Light, she wove linen yarn and acrylic rods on a fiber-optic loom and projected light onto the piece to create different shapes. She deliberately broke the fibers so that when the light projected on them, they reflected the shape she desired.
Iris van Herpen¶
Dutch fashion designer, known for blending traditional craftsmanship with an innovative use of technology in her haute couture. Her seemingly incongruent inspirations include nature, the human body, and the intersection of art, science, and fashion. Techniques to achieve her incredibel results include 3D printing, laser cutting, and ultrasonic welding.
Definitions¶
Making soft circuits. Definition of a soft circuit, e-textile, or electronic textile A flexible electronic circuit that integrates components including sensors and LEDS, made using conductive thread, fabric, or ink instead of rigid wires and printed circuit boards. Applications include integrating electronics into apparel to create smart, interactive textiles used for aesthetic purposes or practical functions like health monitoring, teaching students about electronice in an accessible way, and facilitating forms of artistic expression by adding light and electronics to fabrics.
From Maria's website: Here are some of the basics concepts: - Voltage (V) (Unit: Volts). Is the measure of electric potential energy per unit charge. It represents the force that pushes electric charges through a circuit. - Current (I) (Unit: Amperes). Is the flow of electric charge through a conductor, like a wire. It represents how many charges are moving through the circuit per second. - Resistence (R) (Unit: Ohms Ω). It is a measure of how much a material opposes the flow of electric current. It determines how much current will flow for a given voltage.
An Input: refers to the data, signals, or information that is fed into a system or device for processing. It can come from various sources, such as sensors, user commands, or other systems. An Output: is the data, signals, or information that is produced by a system or device after processing the input.
Series Circuit: The components are connected in a single path, meaning the same current flows through each component, but the voltage is divided among them. If one component fails, the entire circuit stops working.
Parallel Circuit: The components are connected in multiple paths, so each component gets the same voltage, but the current is split across the branches. If one component fails, the rest continue to work.
HARD & SOFT CONNECTIONS¶ • Hard/Hard: Both the sensor and the conductive connections are made from rigid or stiff materials. For example, using copper tape or metal wires on a firm surface like plastic or cardboard.
• Hard/Soft: This involves combining rigid and flexible materials. For example, using conductive thread sewn into fabric along with rigid electronic components like a circuit board.
• Soft/Soft: Both the sensor and the conductive connections are made entirely of flexible materials. For instance, using conductive fabric for both the sensor and the connections.
End of Maria's definitions
! circuit Image from https://www.wevolver.com/article/parallel-vs-series-circuits-differences-theory-and-practical-applications
Soft Circuits: Simple Digital LED Circuits
Below are a variety of basic electronic circuits using an LED light, 3V battery, conductive thread, and condictive fabric to make connections.
1) a square of a grey felted wool sweater; a Lily pad and 3 volt coin battery; a snap sewn on and connetce dot the Lilypad with conductive thread; alligator clips; and a blue Light Emitting Diode.
2) The same components from above, with the addition of another alligator clip and a push button switch created using felted wool and cashmere sweater pieces with conductive fabric.
3) A felted sweater heart with a heart LED from Digikey, and a conductive push-button switch made with conductive fabric and conductive thread. I think this heart is kind of ugly and plan to redo it when I have some more time to do so. I was VERY excited to make a button on/off switch. I had been wanting to make one for a long time so was glad to have the chance to figure out how to do so.
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The stuffed dino, made from polyester velvet for the body and velveteen for the bottom, is stitched with two rows of conductive thread in the bobbin spaced the lenhth of an LED sequin.The rows act as channels to add LED sequins as well as the LED heart from DigiKey. Both have to be sewn with conductive thread tot channels. The interior wires run through the interior and attach to a Lilypad on/off switch at the bottom.
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Light-up cape
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What is a multimeter? A tool used to measure voltage, current, and resistance in a circuit, as well as the continuity of a circuit. With the circuit below, I was able to press my conductive fabric button and heard a ring, meaning that I had continuity, or a complete, unbroken electrical path with very low resistance between the two test probes. This function is used to check if a wire is broken, a fuse is good, or two points in a circuit are electrically connected.
Building a Pressure Sensor with Analon Input¶
Digital Soft Sensor versus Analog Soft Sensor: An analog signal is a continuously variable electronic signal that can take any value within a given range, changing smoothly over time. Unlike digital signals that are limited to discrete steps (like (0)s and (1)s), analog signals can represent an infinite number of values, such as the fluctuating voltage of a sound wave or a sensor's output. A dimmer switch is a continuously variable system, as it can be set to a countless number of positions between off and full brightness.
Velostat: also known as Linqstat. A brand name for a pressure-sensitive, electrically conductive material made of a polymeric film (specifically, a carbon-impregnated polyethylene or polyolefin). Its primary characteristic is that its electrical resistance changes when subjected to pressure or flexing.
It's main uses, according to Google: 1) Pressure and Force Sensors: Its main application, especially among hobbyists and researchers, is creating inexpensive, custom-sized flexible pressure or force sensors for use with microcontrollers.
2) Wearable Technology: It is used in prototypes for wearable devices like pressure-sensitive gloves or shoes.
3) Robotics: Velostat is used in robotic applications for tactile perception, such as measuring grip or contact forces in robotic hands or fingertips.
4) Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) Protection: Industrially, it was originally developed and is still used as a packaging material to protect sensitive electronic devices from damage caused by electrostatic discharge.
Analogue read of Arduino:
I would like to use the Velostat to make a "night sky" with lights that light and dim, using my Digikey star LEDs. This project will be a development of my light-up cape pictured above that I made a few years ago as I was learning the very basics about circuits.
Assignment Criteria:
Build at least one digital and one analogue soft sensor, using different materials and techniques.¶
Document the sensor project as well as the readings got using the AnalogRead of Arduino¶
Integrate the two soft sensors into one or two textile swatches using hard soft connections¶
Document the circuit and its schematic¶
Document your swatches / samples¶
Upload your arduino code as text¶
Upload a small video of the swatches functioning¶
Integrate the swatch into a project (extra credit)¶
5. E-textiles¶
Pasted: 5. E-textiles# Learning outcomes
First circuit:¶
Materials: cable; battery, resistance LED: longer leg= plus; shorter = minus
Research¶
skills: the participant has acquired knowledge through references or replicating existing projects
Design skills¶
the participant understands how to produce soft circuits and sensors
Fabrication skills¶
Learn how to embed electronics on fabrics, study soft-hard connections
Process skills¶
Anyone can go through the workflow, understand it and reproduce it
¶
Final outcome: The assignment is assembled and either complete or tested Student checklist
Build at least one digital and one analogue soft sensor, using different materials and techniques.
Document the sensor project as well as the readings you got using the AnalogRead of Arduino
Integrate the two soft sensors into one or two textile swatches using hard soft connections
Document the circuit and its schematic
Document your swatches / samples
Upload your arduino code as text
Upload a small video of the swatches functioning
Integrate the swatch into a project (extra credit)
Research¶
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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Soft tools - Stephanie Vilayphiou - GreenLab
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Booklet & veggie moisture sensors - Kae Nagano - FabLab Kamakura
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Felted Digital Touch Sensor - Carolina Beirao - TextileLab Amsterdam Waag FutureLab
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Knitted samples - Alice Sowa - Icelandic Textile Center
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Final project trajectory - Ieva Maria Dautartaite
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
- Image reference
- Download reference
Links to reference files, PDF, booklets,
about your images..
-
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.
-
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.
Tools¶
Process and workflow¶
My sketches are ...
This schematic 1 was obtained by..
This tutorial 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
}
Results¶
Video¶
From Vimeo¶
Sound Waves from George Gally (Radarboy) on Vimeo.