Skip to content

9. Wearables

Research

moodboad

As I begin exploring wearables, I’m fascinated by how technology can bring clothing to life—transforming it from something we simply wear into something that interacts, responds, and communicates. Wearable fashion allows me to combine creativity with innovation, using materials, sensors, and smart textiles to design garments that can move, light up, or react to the body and environment. I’m especially interested in how this field connects fashion, art, and technology, opening new possibilities for expression and storytelling through what we wear.

References & Inspiration

  1. behnaz farahi bodyscape gyroscope recording shoulder movements controls LED output.
  2. casey curan Kinetic Fashion using pullies, hinges and gears
  3. smart textile Smart textiles are basically fabrics and materials with added value through technology that enhances a users physical or aesthetic aspect

describe what you see in this image


  1. bailey This tutorial will show you how to create a garment that changes its behavior depending on how conductive you are. It detects conductivity through iron-on conductive fabric that we will use, and it will light up and sing different notes depending on how you touch the conductive fabric. We'll be using sewable electronics (the LilyPad arduino module) and conductive threads and fabrics so that your garment will be soft and washable

Tools

  • Iron on conductive fabric
  • Fabric (i used leather)
  • breadboard
  • hookup wire
  • [5]100k - 50 megohm
  • [1] 8 ohm speaker

Tools

- soldering iron
- wire strippers
- scissors
- conductive fabric

Process and workflow

How to Work With Conductive Fabric

Working with conductive fabric is fun and it's ideal for wearables, soft circuitry, e-textiles and other projects that take advantage of it's properties. Learning the basics will help me make design and material choices tailored to my application

Unique properties

Conductive fabric offers the softness and malleability of fabric, while also having electrical properties. It's mainly used in projects where a soft, flexible and sometimes washable circuit is needed. It's also great for creating low profile switches in projects where manufactured and hard conductive materials are not appropriate.

A Bridge Between Demographics

Conductive fabric can be an excellent way to introduce electronics to a wider group of people, such as knitters, weavers, textile artists, fashion designers and a younger age group. It has helped close the gap between fashion and engineering fields, making a new breed of fashion technologists. Designers are finding they want to learn more about programming and electronics and engineers are getting interested in how fabric behaves and best techniques for building with it.

Build and Program a Musical Circuit

In this circuit you use conductive fabric to create capacitive switches. The attached code is written by Tyler Crumpton and Nicholas Jones, slightly modified to work with less keys

components

- nylon conductive tape 
- Fabric (i used leather)
- breadboard
- hookup wire
- [5]100k - 50 megohm
- [1] 8 ohm speaker
  • Arduino uno

circuit set up

  • Cut out 5 shapes from conductive fabric
  • All the switches connect to pin 2 through a resistor. Jump pin 2 over to a row on your breadboard and connect that row to another so you have 5 openings available.
  • Connect pins 3 - 7 to pin 2 via a high value resistor.
  • Plug the speaker into pin 9 and ground
  • Create a 5 wire ribbon cable with male headers on one end and male snaps on the other. To connect the wire to the snaps, strip about 3/4" from the end. Cut a small piece of fabric and push the prong through that, then take the wire and wrap it around one of the prongs. Set the male part on top and hammer down, trapping the wire in between.
  • Iron the switches to a piece of fabric and hammer the female snaps to the top of each one.
  • Snap the cable to each switch and plug the headers in the breadboard connecting to each pin of the Arduin
  • Plug the Arduino to your computer and upload the sketch.

When each key is pressed, a tone will sound for one second.

Code Example

Use the three backticks to separate code.

#include <CapacitiveSensor.h>
#include "pitches.h"

#define COMMON_PIN      2    // The common 'send' pin for all keys
#define BUZZER_PIN      9   // The output pin for the piezo buzzer
#define NUM_OF_SAMPLES  10   // Higher number whens more delay but more consistent readings
#define CAP_THRESHOLD   150  // Capactive reading that triggers a note (adjust to fit your needs)
#define NUM_OF_KEYS     5    // Number of keys that are on the keyboard

int thisDelay;

// This macro creates a capacitance "key" sensor object for each key on the piano keyboard:
#define CS(Y) CapacitiveSensor(2, Y)

// Each key corresponds to a note, which are defined here. Uncomment the scale that you want to use:
int notes[]={NOTE_C4,NOTE_D4,NOTE_E4,NOTE_F4,NOTE_G4}; // C-Major scale
//int notes[]={NOTE_A4,NOTE_B4,NOTE_C5,NOTE_D5,NOTE_E5,NOTE_F5,NOTE_G5,NOTE_A5}; // A-Minor scale
//int notes[]={NOTE_C4,NOTE_DS4,NOTE_F4,NOTE_FS4,NOTE_G4,NOTE_AS4,NOTE_C5,NOTE_DS5}; // C Blues scale

// Defines the pins that the keys are connected to:
CapacitiveSensor keys[] = {CS(3), CS(4), CS(5), CS(6), CS(7)};

void setup() { 

Serial.begin(9600);
  // Turn off autocalibrate on all channels:
  for(int i=0; i<5; ++i) {
    keys[i].set_CS_AutocaL_Millis(0xFFFFFFFF);
  }
  // Set the buzzer as an output:
  pinMode(BUZZER_PIN, OUTPUT); 
}

void loop() {  

  // Loop through each key:
  for (int i = 0; i < 5; ++i) {

    // If the capacitance reading is greater than the threshold, play a note:
    if(keys[i].capacitiveSensor(NUM_OF_SAMPLES) > CAP_THRESHOLD) {
      tone(BUZZER_PIN, notes[i], 1000); // Plays the note corresponding to the key pressed
    }

}

}

Results