I was lucky to be a part of Engineers for Social Impact workshop by NYUAD Engineering department this March. The scope of the workshop is to visit local communities and see how the skills of engineering could contribute to the community. Group of engineering students were assigned to different assignments, and I was a part of the team that was assigned to explore the possibility to mix eTextiles with local craft techniques to make costumes for the Diwali festival.

The workshop run 3 days between March 20th to 26th.
It was realized as a collaboration of the IDEA lab NYUAD and URBZ in Mumbai, India.

Here are two local textile techniques we decided to work with. Hand embroidery technique called Zardozi, and machine embroidery workshop that can do couching with multiple thread. Here is another post about this embroidery machine technique.

Here is the material used for Zardozi embroidery. We tested it with multimeter, and ! yes, it is conductive!

The first prototype to experiment if it really works electrically.

Circuit planning.

At the embroidery workshop with the craftsmen. The master of the workshop actually got into the idea. The guy embroidering the piece is his worker.

The tools they use for embroidery and Rather crapy schematic plan of ours.. this became the actual embroidery design!

The final outcome!

We asked to use conductive thread (KarlGrimm copper thread with silver coating) as core thread to make the embroidery. Usually using conductive thread on machine is tricky as it is much stiffer than normal thread. The thread feeder often jams. In this case, it is no problem, the second guy (probably assistant of the craftsman) holds the bobbin and adjust it to perfect tension. The second bobbin thread set next to the needle wraps around the core thread when placed on the fabric. This makes a very nice isolation layer.

Here is the outcome of the embroidery. It was a bit different from what we wanted…but I guess it got lost in translation.

The LED, ATTINY45 and tilt sensor had to be added. Here is the final Kurta