Craftzine.com blog: Soft Circuits Archives

Archive: Soft Circuits

November 5, 2009

How-To: Sewable iPod Remote

Here's a quick and easy soft circuit project from Instructables user craft-tech:

There are a lot of really cool iPod remote control projects: some have simple buttons, some react to heartbeat or body motion, and others are designed to interface directly with software running on a computer. However, not one of them is truly wearable, or speaks to the unique needs of e-textiles designers. They have been mostly prototypes, and are seldom intended for serious, daily use. With this in mind, we took our time to design a system that is tiny, robust, and very easy to incorporate into your project. The end result has three components:

1. a tiny, complete circuit that sits *inside* the dock connector

2. four pieces of conductive fabric that form the two buttons of the remote

3. two-channel conductive yarn to connect the sections (we spin it ourselves)

More:

New Soft Circuit Kits in the Maker Shed and Massive Soft Electronics Roundup

October 12, 2009

Fairytale Fashion with Diana Eng

CRAFT and MAKE friend Diana Eng a new wearable tech project going on; it looks awesome! The project description:

From October to December 2009, I will be making magical clothes for Fairytale Fashion. These might be clothes that have blooming flowers, living clothes that breathe, change color, transform. And guess what, YOU will be leading the design! Each Monday, FairytaleFashion.org will have a new video that introduces a technology like inflatables, deployable structures, muscle wire and microcontrollers. At the end of each video is a design question. Answer the weekly design questions on our website. I will use your answers to create the Fairytale Fashion. Finally, the finished garments will be presented in a fashion show in early 2010. Fairytale Fashion is produced with the support of Eyebeam.

October 7, 2009

Soft Circuit Zipper Communicators

Jai Yi Lin made these networked zipper communicators for two far-away people to share how much they miss each other with a zip zip and an LED meter. [via Fashioning Technology]

In the Maker Shed:

Lilypad E-Sewing Kit

October 5, 2009

Jie Qi made this whimsical, magical interactive electronic pop-up book using the paper arduino prototypes coming out of Leah Buechley's new research group at the MIT Media Lab. Syuzi at Fashioning Technology did a nice report on some of the different pages and what they do. She used conductive paint, thread, and fabric to make innovative switches. I truly think that children's books will have functionality like in the not-too-distant future.

September 9, 2009

Fashion Camp this weekend

Here's an interesting event happening this weekend in NYC:

On September 12 and 13, 2009, during New York Fashion Week, the mainstream fashion community, the independent fashion community, and fashion's next wave of wearable technologists will convene at FashionCampNY to address the future of fashion in the 21st Century.

To be held at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program Center (721 Broadway), FashionCampNY is the first large event to bring together disparate parts of the fashion community to discuss and explore the intersection of fashion and technology. For two days, roughly 300 fashion professionals, designers, innovators and fashion-lovers will teach and converse about the future of fashion, exploring emerging questions through workshops, presentations, and collaboration. It is an “unconference” attended and run by the participants.

I'll be helping run a soft circuits workshop, so come on out!

September 3, 2009

Radio Rug Uses Human Antenna

Designer Florian Kräutli is working on this rug with embedded conductive threads that, when walked upon, use the stepper's body as an antenna for a connected radio. Via Fashioning Technology.

August 4, 2009

Soft Stroke Sensor

Hannah Perner-Wilson made this soft stroke sensor from some conductive thread and fabric. When the sensor is stroked, the fibers touch each other in a different way than when still, transmitting the signal to a computer or microcontroller.

July 28, 2009

New Wearable Electronics Resource Site

One of my favorite soft circuit mavens, Hannah Perner-Wilson, has teamed up with Mika Satomi to bring you a new site called How to Get What You Want, a container site for all the totally rad projects they've been cranking out recently. Bookmark their site for your reference, I know I just did. I love that the graphic is made up of a bunch of soft circuit techniques. Via Fashioning Technology.

More soft circuits and fashion tech on CRAFT:

July 27, 2009

Open Softwear Free E-Book

Gareth @ MAKE points us to an awesome new resource for soft circuits and other electronic wearables called Open Softwear, produced by folks associated with K3, the Malmö University School of Arts and Communication in Sweden. I'm digging the simple illustrations and easy-to-follow examples. Downlowd the free PDF to get started.

More:

In the Maker Shed:

Lilypad E-Sewing Kit

June 30, 2009

How-To: Nightlife Necklace

Over on Etsy's Storque, Diana Eng has a tutorial from her book, Fashion Geek, on making this LED "nightlife" necklace.

June 10, 2009

Soft Sensor Spread

Hannah Perner-Wilson is having an open studio, as evidenced by her Flickr stream, and check out the mouth-watering spread of soft sensors for wearable and soft electronics she's got there! Her production volume is totally relentless.

June 3, 2009

LED dress for Bachelorette

Karen Curley and Lindsay Broomfield made this LED dress for the band Bachelorette using a LilyPad Arduino and some LilyPad sewable LEDs. Check out the Flickr set. Via Fashioning Technology.

More:

May 21, 2009

Soft Circuit Merit Badge Merits Itself

Here's the latest project from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories:

The proliferation of spoof, nerd, science, and electronics merit badges has demonstrated that geeks like to show off their skills and accomplishments. One skill is particularly appropriate for the format: soft circuitry. By building your own soft circuit onto an actual badge you can demonstrate your mastery.

EMSL will be at Maker Faire, don't miss them!

More:

Electronic Embroidery/Sewing Kit

May 19, 2009

Glowing Button Cycling Jacket

One of the most common DIY LilyPad Arduino uses seems to be in bike wear. I don't know if it's because bike riders like electronics or what, but here's another one! Instructables user kempton made this very attractive cycling jacket with LED buttons, and wrote up a detailed step-by-step tutorial for making your own, complete with turn signals.

More:

May 12, 2009

Lasercut Stretchy Conductive Fabric Traces

One of the down sides to most conductive fabric is that it's not stretchy. Instructables user nadya managed to make conductive fabric stretchy by lasercutting zigzag patterns in it to affix it to cotton jersey.

May 9, 2009

How-To: LED Robot Embroidery

In this Threadbanger episode, learn to sew a simple circuit to create an embroidered robot with glowing LED eyes. Diana Eng shows you this project from her book, Fashion Geek.

More:

May 8, 2009

CRAFT Video: Color Changing LED Brooch

Sew up this little colorful brooch using a LilyPad tri-color LED and three small potentiometers for a customizable color wardrobe embellishment. No programming required!

Subscribe to the CRAFT Podcast in iTunes, or download the m4v video.

Potentiometers are variable resistors. They change the amount of electricity that can pass through them based on the turning of the knob, thereby dimming and brightening the three channels of the tri-color LED. The colors mix and diffuse through the roving, producing any color in the rainbow. Here's the front,

and the back,

and here's the diagram for sewing the components together.

Materials and tools:

conductive thread (E-sewing Kit)
coincell battery (E-sewing Kit)
sewable battery holder (E-sewing Kit)
LilyPad tri-color LED (Sparkfun)
3 small 1K-ohm potentiometers (Digikey)
small on-off pushbutton switch (Digikey)
brooch template (cardboard or illustration board)
fabric
needle and thread
pin back
wool roving
felting needle
felting surface (upholstery foam scrap works great)
scissors
pliers
alligator clips for prototyping

More:

In the Maker Shed:

LilyPad E-Sewing Kit

May 7, 2009

Wearable Technology At ITP

Ellie Roundtree, a Rocketboom technology correspondent, takes us on a tour of the spring show at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, highlighting wearable technology projects. I'm digging Adam Harvey's Paparazzi defense flash and Anaid Gomez's heartrate-sensing iPod controller. Via Core77.

More:

April 28, 2009

Incredible Electronic Dress

Via the CRAFT Flickr pool, Marisa Ranalli made this totally amazing handmade electronic and fiber dress powered by LilyPad Arduinos and included LEDs and nitinol wire (an alloy that changes shape when electricity is applied). It's her final project in the Textiles program at Sheridan College in Toronto, and it's totally rad! I'd love to see a video about it. It will be shown at the Lennox Contemporary Gallery from April 30th-May 10th.

More:

April 14, 2009

Fabric Bend Sensor Kit

Hanna Perner-Wilson just released a kit version of her fabric bend sensor- everything you need to make one yourself!

This is a kit, meaning that it comes unassembled and requires you to have tools and some regular sewing thread as well as about half an hour time for completion.

This kit contains:

* Two 2 x 12 cm pieces of 1.5 mm thick HS quality neoprene with polyester jersey fused to each side (gray, purple)

* Two 1.5 x 9.5 cm pieces of Velostat

* Two 1 x 2 cm pieces of stretch conductive fabric with fusible interfacing adhered to one side

* 60 cm of conductive thread

* 1:1 Instruction stencil printout on A4 paper

To compete this kit you will need:

* Regular clothing iron

* About 60 cm of regular sewing thread

* Sewing needle

* Scissors for cutting thread

* Knife for cutting out stencil

* Pen for marking stencil

You can use her Instructable as a guide to construction.

Soft Circuits Home | Next >

Craft:

How-To: Sewable iPod Remote

Fairytale Fashion with Diana Eng

Soft Circuit Zipper Communicators

Computational Pop-Up Book

Fashion Camp this weekend

Radio Rug Uses Human Antenna

Soft Stroke Sensor

New Wearable Electronics Resource Site

Open Softwear Free E-Book

How-To: Nightlife Necklace

Soft Sensor Spread

LED dress for Bachelorette

Soft Circuit Merit Badge Merits Itself

Glowing Button Cycling Jacket

Lasercut Stretchy Conductive Fabric Traces

How-To: LED Robot Embroidery

CRAFT Video: Color Changing LED Brooch

Wearable Technology At ITP

Incredible Electronic Dress

Fabric Bend Sensor Kit

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