New Textiles 2011

Due: Tuesday, February 15, 2011
See student circuits here

Using the materials and tools introduced in class, construct an interactive circuit out of soft materials. Your circuit should contain at least one output (like an LED or motor) and one switch or sensor. There are links to useful tutorials for this assignment on the Links page. For inspiration, check out some of the textile circuits from last year’s class here.

Once you finish your circuit, you’ll document some of it’s basic electrical characteristics. You’ll use a multimeter to measure some properties, and Ohm’s Law–which says that V (Voltage) = I (Current) x R (Resistance)–to calculate a few others. Lady Ada has a good tutorial about how to use a multimeter here, and there’s a fun interactive web page on Ohm’s law here.

Measure or calculate the following properties of your completed project:

• measure the resistance of each trace in your circuit
• OPTIONAL: use these measurements to calculate the total resistance of your circuit
  if you are using more than one LED in your circuit, this page can help you calculate the total
  here’s an even better hint
• measure the voltage of your battery
• OPTIONAL: use Ohm’s Law to calculate the current running through your circuit
• measure the current running through your circuit

Create a post (on this site) that documents your project and measurements. Make sure to add your post to the the Textile Circuit category. Your page should include:

• a few sentences describing your project
• a few pictures of your work in progress
• at least one picture of your completed project
• a short video of your completed project
• a diagram of your circuit that includes your resistance and voltage measurements
• a listing of the rest of the electrical measurements and calculations you made

Here’s an example diagram:

Create a username and password for the site here. There’s a tutorial that explains how to make a WordPress post here.

Bring your project to class on the 15th for demos!