wimi

by meade bernard

*hard work pays off - this is the view from my apartment at 5:30 on Wednseday morning... still up sewing away.

wearable interactive modular interface

Primary Goal

• NO! ===>

These examples served both as inspiration and asmistakes from which I could learn.

Dance is (obviously) an art that relies on a visualaesthetic, but these sensor interfaces seemto completely disregard aesthetic and focus entirelyon function.

However, they have excellent functionality and aregreat examples of how a dancer’s role can be completely transformed using this technology.

I tried to take this functionality and applyit to a garment that’s actually interestingto look at.

This garment by Leah Beuchley is a great example.It clearly shows an effort to combine fashion

aesthetic with functionality (although the ‘saved by the bell’color scheme doesn’t quite agree with me.)

Secondary Goal--Modularity--

lilypad can be removed via hooks

entire unit can be removed via snaps

Materials

sewing gear

sensors

velcro, both conductive and non-

shirt, with the fancy sleeve mod

conductive fabric

lilypad interface

using the same hook and loop technique w/ a lilypad accelerometer

using the same hooks to fasten the stretch sensors

using aligator clips to fasten flex sensor to conductive velcro

pouch to allow flex sensor to slide up and down elbow

10k resistor bridging two pieces of conductive fabric

later designs might involve the resistor dangling a bit to allow the garment to stretch

I might also experiment with the resistances of different semi-conductive materials to try to find a substitute

next stepsThe first step I plan to take is to solidify the design of the lilypad interface.Changes I plan to make:

-make it as small as possible. There are much smaller button snaps available at most fabric/notion stores, and these would allow for a smaller gap between connections, and a smaller overall piece of fabric. The smaller this interface is, the more versatile it will be.-as mentioned in my technique report, making both the lilypad and the fabric removable is redundant.In the next stage of this I will sew the lilypad into the fabric, such that it is a compact unit. I will then usethe button snaps to swap the fabric unit, as a whole, in or out (thanks to rob for the input on that).-When all is designed, I’ll make a pretty vector file of the design and post it, so that other people can use it.I think this is a versatile enough interface to be used in any number of applications. The vector file would alsoallow for laser-cutting the conductive fabric, which would be much more full-proof than the current scissor method.

Beyond that, I just need to rethink the resistors, and maybe the alligator clips, as well.

(maybe a name for the lilypad interface would be nice)