Sewing on to a PCB is one of the ways to connect textiles to electronic as we know from xslab, Leah Buechley or the Bling Cricket. To do it with Arduino I made this shield for the mini:
On the frontside you have the controller and a power source
the actual board layout sits on the backside. I connected the reset to 5V to prevent random resets.
Once I tested it I will blog the eagle files.
Today we put in snap buttons as connection to a textile bus into the prototypes.
We figured out that we have to work with straight lines to connect to a textile bus. The snap buttons are a neat thing for the children to work with. For the production it means a lot of manual labour. The idea was to have snaps on the textile pcb and on the patches plus a snaps set with tool to put them in in the toolbox. Unfortunatly the snap boxes with the tools are really expensive.
Today we were working on a textile pcb prototype. We even finished the first one.
The technique used is embroidery and we worked with Siw’s sewing maschine. We used a very thin copper wire and fixed it with a zick zag stitches.
That is how it worked:
We started by sketching
and transfered the sketch to the fabric
Did the embroidery
and there we go. Now we put in the Arduino mini and fix it with a wire wrapper tool (and maybe a little bit of soldering)
I really like the idea of “interactive” gloves. With the similar approach as the patterns used during the workshop in Bremen, they could be a part of the beginners kit, with main goal to teach children basic facts about circuits, how these work…
In Bremen you also showed a great example of teching circuits – by creating a chain from children, asigning a special function to each of them.
We can combine both approaches, by providing the students with gloves that would enable them to “connect” to each other and to create a real circuit.
I have made a drawing of the idea:
I was thinking about a glove, that would have for example conductive Velcro fastener (or other kind of conductive and easy to use connector) at the end of the finger tips. Conductive yarns would be wowen into the glove, heading towards the upper side of the palm. There could be another piece of hardware sewed in permanently (battery, led, motion sensor…) so we’ll have several types of gloves that would enable the kids to create the most simple circuits without a controller.
We can also leave a blank space with press studs on the top of the palm to attach patterns (similar or same as the ones already used in Bremen). Therefore we have a more flexible glove. Moreover we can for example sew in another two more press studs to attach longer wires (well, it doesn’t have to be wires, we are working with conductive textiles…) that would create a connection between left and the right hand of a children – so they could join both their hands with classmates and create even more complicated circuits.
There are many possibilities what to do with such gloves, since there are many circuits children can build.
Further ideas referring to the idea of a body lab where children get the opportunity to experiment with different sensors and actuators which are connected to the movements of their body have led to a glove:
The idea is that it is empty at the beginning so the purpose is open still. Later different sorts of sensors or actuators can be implemented according to children’s decisions.
Several gloves have been produced so far:
In order to improve the connection between textiles and hardware, the conductive marterial is woven into the fabric so that it can be cut along determined distances:
A closer look reveals the conductive threads which are woven into the fabric:
From the textile development perspective there will be the following products we are aimed at in the EduWear project:
An „experimental kit“ for circuits and programming were the children get the first hands-on experiences with electronics or programming and gain a basic understanding before working on their individual projects. There will be an electronic circuit the children can change by putting patches onto it or by closing gaps using textile technologies like sewing and a read-made circuit were children can practice programming.
The kit will also provide textile sensors and actuators. As first example we will have a pressure sensitive switch, stretch sensitive woven fabric, and a regular textile switch. For actuators we are aiming at a thermo chromic display that is pre-produced and children apply their own pattern by stenciling, painting or gluing their designs onto it. This textile in- and outputs will be supported by standard electronic components like light sensors.
An easy to use textile patch were the controller sits on as well as easy-to-connect patches with the sensors and actuators. These patches will be also used in the experimental kit. Take a look at
