To that end, I decided to make a dress that incorporate both of these elements. In particular, I wanted to create scallops in the dress, that moved up and down, creating a waving effect. Because my scallops were too small, in the end, unless you are close, the movement is not super visible. Never the less, I was successful in achieving this result and am excited to share the video and process below.

Final Dress (Front & Back)

My inspiration from my dress came from several places including art installations as well as high-fashion. I have provided slides below of some of my points of inspiration.

Getting Started:

I decided to first laser cut the pieces I needed for the dress. I started with the vornoi design you see at the top of the dress. The code for that is a simple vornoi spiral code, which you can find below. In addition, I created scallops in adobe illustrator and used the laser cutter to cut those into the black material of the dress. I first cut out the pattern pieces and then laser in the designs.

I then started to sew in the nitinol and wired the scallops of the skirt part of my dress. I decided to use .010in diameter nitinol which required 1050mA of current. With a 3.7V battery this meant that I need about 3.52Ohms of resistance. I decided to only do 2 scallops in series to ensure that I had the appropriate resistance. I programed the Arduino so that 4 different sets of scallops would move. I decided to have the current run 4 10 seconds in each set, before moving on to the next set. The simple Arduino Code is also provided below.

Before stitching the dress together completely, I tested the nitinol to make sure it was working. A link to the video is below: https://vimeo.com/42513826

Once I was sure that the nitinol and circuit worked properly, I connected the top and bottom of the dress. The end result is below:

Video of Dress in Action: https://vimeo.com/42514541

Final Presentation Slides

Processing Code:

void setup() {

Arduino Code:

int Nitinol1 = 17;int Nitinol2 = 16;int Nitinol3 = 6;int Nitinol4 = 5;
void setup() {                 // initialize the digital pin as an output. // Pin 13 has an LED connected on most Arduino boards:
pinMode(Nitinol1, OUTPUT); pinMode(Nitinol2, OUTPUT); pinMode(Nitinol3, OUTPUT);  pinMode(Nitinol4, OUTPUT);}
void loop() {digitalWrite(Nitinol1, HIGH);   // set the first leg ondelay(10000);              // wait for 10 seconddigitalWrite(Nitinol1, LOW);    // set the first leg off digitalWrite(Nitinol2, HIGH);   // set the second leg ondelay(10000);  // wait for 10 seconddigitalWrite(Nitinol2, LOW);    // set the second leg off digitalWrite(Nitinol3, HIGH);   // set the third leg ondelay(10000); // wait for 10 seconddigitalWrite(Nitinol3, LOW);   // set the third leg off
digitalWrite(Nitinol4, HIGH);    // set the forth leg ondelay(10000);  // wait for 10 seconddigitalWrite(Nitinol4, LOW);    // set the forth leg off }

1. Generated and modified the vornoi diagram which will be used for the upper part of the dress:

2. Created an adobe illustrator file of the scallops that will also need to be lasercut

Initially I planned on transferring all of the pattern pieces into illustrator and cutting the pattern pieces using a laser cutter. Although I was very excited about this option, it proved to be super time consuming and I wasn’t able to make sure the dimensions were completely accurate. Given this, I decided to only use the lasercutter for the cutting the vornoi and scallop patterns.

3. Bought and studied the pattern that will be used to make the dress

4. Bought both pink and black polyester/cotton blended fabric to use for the dress, as well as a 22in zipper

5. Bought a 3.7V Polymer Lithium Ion Battery for Which I’m waiting for delivery

6. Acquired (from the Lab) nitinol which will provide a strong pull then before. Based on the voltage I will need the following current to flow through the nitinol:

Next Steps:

1. I will cut the fabric based on the patterns and get more information about booking the large laser cutter.

2. I will begin to test the flexinol on small pieces of fabric to see how it reacts

3. I will use double-side fusible on pieces of fabric that will then be laser cut into the vornoi and scallop designs and then cut then into the appropriate pattern shapes as well

4. I will then stitch the dress together

5. I will attached the nitinol to the appropriate places and then build out the circuit with a touch sensor as the on/off switch.

Lesson #1:

Always start with a non-complicated design. I’ll admit, the directions for using the embroidery adapter on the sewing machine seemed quite easy and so I decided to hit the ground running. In particular, I was hoping to embroider the following design:

Although this would have been awesome, the embroidery program couldn’t handle the complexity of the design and crashed numerous times. This is when I realized, starting off with something similar would have been better.

Lesson #2:

I finally narrowed down the design to be just one of the leafs of the spiral windmill shown above. This reduced the number of stitches required and made it easier for the program to handle. However, the next complexity came with using the dissolvable stabilizer. I thought that just embroidering into the stabilizer and running it under water once the embroidery was done would do the trick. Unfortunately, a special stitch is required and my design turned to mush soon after being put under water.

Finally, taking all of these learnings, I gave it one last shot and decided to make a simple leaf inspired bracelet below. I only used one leaf of the vornoi I generated and then attached strings to the end of the embroidered piece to make a bracelet. The work in progress, and final product is below:

Processing Code for Spiral (Modified based on http://newtextiles.media.mit.edu/2012/?p=2042)

void setup() { size(800,800,P3D); //size of your intended pattern noLoop(); // don’t need to use the draw loop  /*unique name for your file. if left unchanged, will simply save file with current milisecond*/ String fileName= “voronoi”+millis()+”.pdf”;    beginRaw(PDF, fileName); //enables you to save your design to a pdf        setupVoronoi(); // create your voronoi generator          // =========GENERATE SPIRAL=============== //
int centerLimit = 350; // variable to control the maximum diameter of the spiralfloat theta = .2; //like the diameter of your circle, but increases with every point in your spiral, producing the spiral effect.
//this will draw one spiral for(int k=0;k<centerLimit;k++){            theta +=.7;drawPoint(width/2,height/2,theta,theta);
}
drawVoronoi(); //renders your voronoiendRaw(); //ends the recording }

void drawPoint(float orgX, float orgY, float theta, float diameter) { //function that generates and adds circular points
float xPos = sin(theta)*diameter+orgX;float yPos = cos(theta)*diameter+orgY;
voronoi.addPoint(new Vec2D(xPos, yPos));}

The past two weeks, I spent a lot of time learning to operate a knitting machine. After many cast-on / cast-off failures, I finally managed to hone my skills. Through this weeks assignment, I worked on several different pieces. The first was provided as part of the assignment construction. I used the fine guage knitting machine to complete all of the assignments. I preferred that machine to the mid gauge as the knit was cleaner and tighter.

1. Laser cutting
2. Mixing Knit/Woven Fabrics
3. Shape Memory Alloys

My inspiriation comes from the designer Hussein Chalayan, who has used nitinol to create dynamic apparel. See video below.

For my project, I would like to design a dress that utilizes these techniques to display wearable and soothing art.

Below I have provided two sketches of my designs, as well as a powerpoint outlining my project plan.

NewTextiles Project Proposal v.1 BS

This week, I had the fortune of learning many new things, including how to use a lasercutter! It was awesome. As part of learning to use a lasercutter, I not only coded my first vornoid diagram (more details here -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram) but I also made my first bracelet using canvas fabric and felt.

I have provided code for the diagrams I created at the bottom of this post. But before that, check out my work!

First, I decided to just test the laser cutter and its level of precision. To do this, I generated a complicated vornoid diagram, with thin lines to make a sort-of-lace.

As you can see, the lines were a bit too thin and the lace structure started to come apart.

Then, I decided to reduce the complexity of the vornoid diagram and make two yin and yang type bracelets. I first generated the following vornoid diagrams:

I then cleaned up the diagrams in Adobe Illustrator before before printing on the canvas fabric (which was backed by double sided fusible) The end result was this:

I then decided to reduce the scale of these outputs to make lacelets that could be utilized as accesories. My final products (fused to felt) are shown below.

There are many cool things you can do with a laser cutter. I look forward to spending more time using lasercutting as an option.

Introducing the Walicon — A Wallet Made of Silicon. In addition to making a function piece, I also wanted to better understand several key things:

1. Whether or not it was possible to stitch into silicon
2. How paper and ink would react to silicon
3. How fabric and silicon could be utilized together in a stylistic way

Therefore in order to meet these objectives I ensure that I not only had silicon agents, but also fabric, a sewing machine, and a paper printed with the words Lallitara.

Key steps:

1. I started by first printing the Lallitara logo
2. I then created a model using legos in which I then poured the silicon mixtures. I ensure that the at the bottom of the mold, I had placed the lallitara logo
3. I then utilized the sewing machine to create the final product

Think swatches are really cool?

Find it painful to have to lift each swatch piece yourself when you are using a swatch board?

Wish there was some way to utilize swatches to make an interactive piece of art?

If you said yes to any of these, then Swatch It is for you! This interactive project utilizes shape changing wire, also know an nitinol to create a dynamic swatch board.

In addition to Nitinol (small thin wire), I needed discarded sari swatches, an Arduino, two mosfets, and insulated wire.

Given the properties of Nitnol (aka flexinol wire) that I was using, which was a .006 diameter, I needed to care a resistance of 410 mA of current to have the wire straighten. I crafted the circuit below and then measure the total resistance to ensure that it was equal to xxx (R=V/I —> R= 5V/410mA= 12.19 Ω). Given this calculation, I knew that the resistance of my circuit needed to me somewhere between 12 and 14 Ω (buffer for varying current).

Below I have provided a diagram of my circuit and details on the resistance of key points:

After testing the first circuit, I then setup an additional circuit controlled by a different arduino pin for the second row of swatches. In the end, my project resulted in the following:

In order to make this, I first started by making two velostat based sensors utilizing Velostat, tape, 100% stainless steal conductive thread, felt, and black thread. After making the sensor, I inserted it between two layers of felt to make a sensor pocket.

I then wired together a string of LEDs and programmed an Arduino to control the LEDs.

I then placed the LEDs and sensors on an existing yogamat.  I also took some measurements to ensure that there would be no issues once I did the final test, including:

I was ready to test my balance. In particular the LEDs would light up depending on which sensor was pressed

1) Left Sensor  - First LED would light up

2) Second Sensor – Second LED would light up

3) Both Sensors (with similar pressure ) – the lights would light up in sequence as if you had won a game.

Supplies: thermocrohmic paint, cotton fabric, conductive thread, sewing needle, a switch, a battery

Step 1: Paint checks pattern on to the cotton fabric

Step 2: Sew in conductive thread to horizontal lines, connecting the switch and battery terminal as well

Step 3: After securing everything in place, I used a multimeter to calculate the resistance in each trace, as well as the voltage. Using this information, I was able to determine the amount of current running through my circuit:

Key Measurements:

Resistance: 1st Trace – 13.4 2nd Trace – 1.3 Total – 14.7 Ω

Voltage: 3.9 V

Measured Resistance: 202.4 mA

Calculated Resistance: 265.3 mA

(I am not clear why there was a discrepancy, except due to human error).

Given that the maximum amount of resistance allowable in the systam was 37Ω, and the minimum current required was 100mA, I was confident that my system would work.

Step 4: Cut off all extra thread, make pretty:

Step 5: And enjoy the video:

Extra Considerations: I thought the idea of having a versatile textile would be really cool. In the future I would try to integrate the conductive thread into the fabric better, so that once the blue color “disappeared” you couldn’t see the conductive thread. There is also an opportunity to make the checks smaller and the design more intricate. I would need to do further tests as I make the circuit longer, since the resistance will increase.