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    Content by Mika Satomi and Hannah Perner-Wilson
    E-Textile Tailor Shop by KOBAKANT
    The following institutions have funded our research and supported our work:

    Since 2020, Hannah is guest professor of the Spiel&&Objekt Master's program at the University of Performing Arts Ernst Busch in Berlin

    From 2013-2015 Mika was a guest professor at the eLab at Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee

    From July - December 2013 Hannah was a researcher at the UdK's Design Research Lab

    From 2010-2012 Mika was a guest researcher in the Smart Textiles Design Lab at The Swedish School of Textiles

    From 2009 - 2011 Hannah was a graduate student in the MIT Media Lab's High-Low Tech research group led by Leah Buechley


    In 2009 Hannah and Mika were both research fellows at the Distance Lab


    Between 2003 - 2009 Hannah and Mika were both students at Interface Cultures
    We support the Open Source Hardware movement. All our own designs published on this website are released under the Free Cultural Works definition
    Sensors

    Bonded Bend Sensor


    As I got a new stretchy fusible/heat bond from Bemis, I started to experiment with bonding fabrics with iron. Making bend sensor with this technique is super quick, super easy and works very very well as a sensor.
    Rachel Freire has been working a lot with the heat bond and eTextiles as second skin project >. http://www.rachelfreire.com/second-skin-login/.
    I have been inspired by her work to start working with these stretch heat bonds. Especially with these leather like stretch material, it does create a second skin feeling.

    Materials:

    Bemis stretchy heat bond, stretchy conductive fabric, Eeonyx stretch fabric (20K), stretch synthetic leather (or any material for base)


    I used this synthetic leather material as a base. It is stretchy on one direction.

    Step by step:

    Apply the stretchy heat bond on the back of the stretch conductive fabric and make 2 small stripes. Peal off the backing paper.
    Place the conductive fabric on the base material, 5mm a part in parallel and press with an iron. Make sure to use other fabric or a parchment paper to protect the fabric from the heat.


    Apply the stretchy heat bond on the synthetic leather. Peal off the backing paper.


    Cut the synthetic leather with heat bond into bend sensor shape. Make sure to use the stretchy direction on longer side.
    Size-wise it should look something like this. This becomes the outer layer of the sensor.


    Now, I trimmed the corner to round shape. This is not necessary as a function. You can choose any shape you like. Then cut the Eeonyx stretch fabric into the shape smaller than the base fabric, but wider than the gap between the conductive fabric on the base.


    Now, place the Eeonyx stretch fabric and the outer layer on top of the conductive fabric stripes.


    Apply the heat with an iron to fix the outer layer on the base layer trapping the Eeonyx stretch fabric in the middle.


    I get a really nice smooth reading with range between 28k ohm and 14k ohm.


    It also works as stretch sensor on the long direction.

    I made this sensor as a prototype for the Linlow performance costume. It ended up as a elbow and knee bend sensor. Here is the elbow sensor I designed.



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