Example Projects

This project uses the Openwear open design for gLove Mono by Zoe Romano and integrates a felt & velostat bend sensor on the middle finger. A lilypad arduino is programmed to read the analog sensor value of the fabric bend sensor, and trigger 1, 2 or 3 LED lights to light up depending on how [...]

Also: poke sensor, pin prick sensor, prick sensor, sting sensor… Two layers of conductive fabric with isolating spacer in between.

This example uses an ATtiny microcontroller (programmed using arduino!) to playback a melody every time a head is laid on the pillow. The speaker is embroidered with conductive directly onto the surface of the pillow. A magnet is mounted directly behind the coil, inside the pillow is a knit pressure sensor that detects when a [...]

An embroidered fabric speaker made into a pillow. Inside the pillow an amplification module hacked from a commercial device lets you easily connect your mp3 player to play back your favorite music. While the speaker might not be as loud as commercial speakers, you can very comfortably lay your head down on it to rest.

An example using the lilypad arduino sewn to a pillow with a speaker and fabric tilt sensor, playing a different note for each petal of the sensor. The pillow also has an analog pin broken out to one of it’s corners to be connected to any external analog sensors to make noise.

Using an ATtiny microcontroller to do capacitive sensing on the stem of the flower. When the flower is picked it’s petals slowly open to reveal a glowing inner light.

When conductive yarn is knit/crochet into small pieces, it shows pressure sensitive property. I made granny squares, which middle gray part is made with conductive yarn thus pressure sensitive. Nine of the granny squares are assembled together like the typical granny blankets, which is actually a pressure sensitive button array. The assembled granny squares are [...]

When conductive yarn is mixed in the knit/crochet piece, it becomes pressure sensitive. This can be implemented as touch sensor or bend sensor.

Here is the second version of Solar T-Shirt with components directly sewn on with conductive thread. It is also using slightly different circuit than the other solar t-shirt. The new schematic is the following. Please not that it is using FLED (Blinking LED) instead of diode on other one. In this example I used 2N3906 [...]

DJ Hoodie is a wearable interface that includes 4 channel zipper switch, fabric buttons with LED indicators and fabric pressure sensors. Two of these hoodies are connected with knitted stretch sensors on the hoods. It interfaces with computer with arduino using Firmata library and Pduino.

Using the Sparkfun uLog module to log three channels of data and then read it out and graph it in Processing.

This example shows how to construct a “textile” flexible tilt sensor from extremely cheap and available materials. Substituting conductive fabric and a metal bead for aluminum foil.

This soft LED light pouch is easy to make and runs with two AAA batteries. The design is super simple and fits really well with the lilypad components. Though you can also modify a regular LED and slide switch to be sewable by soldering little loops on the end of their leads. The light is [...]

This is a very simple project that uses conductive thread stitched into some rope ribbon as an on/off switch. When the bow is tied, the circuit is completed and thus the light lights up, when the bow is untied there circuit is interrupted and the light is off.

Knit from conductive thread, resistive yarn and regular yarn. This bracelet does not light up unless you stretch it, so it remains off while you wear it.

Sew together various soft electronic components to turn your favorite clothing item into a wearable waste of energy!

Produced as an example for a workshop, this sleeve combines a range of fabric components.

A Toy Piano embedded on a T-shirt. It has 8 keys from Do to Do (1 octave). You can play simple music by wearing the shirt and pushing the fabric button on the shirt. All the components from the toy piano (batteries, speaker, circuit board) are placed on the shirt and connected with poppers. All [...]

Neck-stroking wearable for sunny days. The components for this solar driven circuit are integrated in this decorative t-shirt, exploring the possibilities of textile electronics and interaction with the sun.

As an example for an electronic textiles workshop this t-shirt interfaces with a toy piano, allowing for people to play music on my back. Fabric Buttons replace the keys, poppers connect to the circuit so that it can be connected and disconnected from the t-shirt. This allows for all of the components on the t-shirt [...]

A pair of slippers for drawing, playing games and exploring alternative input. These slippers are designed with two pressure sensors embedded in each sole and can sense the weight being shifted between the toe and heel of each foot. This information is fed into a computer where a drawing application translates this analog input into [...]

This is the wireless version of the origianally wired JoySlippers. Using Xbee Direct (Multipul Xbee – Xbee- comp) communication connection, rather than spiral telephone cable.

>> Instructable (not yet!) >> Massage me Instructable As many people told us, and also we thought of it many times.. It will be nice if there was a Massage me foot version for foot massage. So, we finally started to make one. That is the spirit of “how to get what I want”. As [...]

These gloves were originally made as part of the Perfect Human performance, and were exhibited separate from the performance in an exhibition space, which allowed for the audience to get a feel for how it might be to wear the whole Puppeteer Costume.

Exploring the use of affordable, off-the-shelf materials and basic techniques to create wireless motion capture wearables.

Intended for use by children and their piano teachers to visualize the difference between “p” piano (soft) and “f” forte (hard). The pressure sensitive layers of fabric in the fingertips of these gloves are stretchy so that they can fit tightly.

Combining beads and other decorative elements with textiles to create tilt sensitive designs. A bracelet decorated with six conductive fabric petals and a row of beads with a metal bead on the end, makes for a simple six point tilt detection. It is also designed so that the metal bead will make contact with two [...]

Based on the wired Tilt Sensing Bracelet, this version uses Xbee Direct (Xbee-Xbee) communication connection to send the digital data from the tilt sensing bracelet to a feedback bracelet which has an LED display. LEDs light up according to where the tilt sensor is making contact.

The Time Sensing Bracelet is a Fabric Potentiometer. You select your desired time of day by making contact in the corresponding position on your wrist – where your watch would normally be.

This joypad is made up of four conductive thread pressure sensors. The analog transition between the directions (up, right, down and left) comes from the buffering material (in this case 3 cm thick squishy packing material) that absorbs and spreads the pressure from the user’s pushing, creating a gradual transition between the inputs.