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  • Bike+Light Workshop
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  • Game controller hack
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  • Handcrafting Textile Mice
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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
    Workshops

    soft interactive technologies

    This is a course note for the Soft Interactive Technology course at the Art Academy Weissensee Berlin. The course is normally given as a series of hands-on workshops, but due to our difficulty of meeting each other in physical spaces, it is developed as an online course for the year. It was first given in summer semester 2020, and was repeated in winter semester 20/21 and winter semester 21/22

    The course took place as weekly online course. The hand book PDF is here >>

    Meet the Material

    meet the material meet the material

    Highly conductive textile materials

    Copper Ripstop Fabric Shieldex Kassel
    Company: Statex
    Characteristics: Corrosion proof copper-silver plated polyamide ripstop fabric, < 0.03 Ohms/cm2 surface resistivity.

    Shieldex Technik-tex
    Company: Statex
    Characteristics: Silver plated knitted fabric, 78% Polyamide + 22% Elastomer plated with 99% pure silver, < 2 Ohms/cm2 surface resistivity (front/visible side). stretchy in one direction

    High Flex 3981 7X1
    company: Karl Grimm
    Characteristic: Very conductive, Solder-able.

    Shieldex Shieldex 235/34
    company: Statex
    Characteristic: Shieldex 235/34 dtex 4-ply HC: Silver plated, 50 Ω/m ± 10 Ω/m.

    Elitex Fadenmaterial Art Nr. 235/34 PA/Ag
    company: Imbut GmbH
    Characteristic: silver conductive thread (100% polyamid beschichtet mit silber.
    Elitex_Fadenmaterial

    A small intro to electricity

    (the below explanation comes from “Getting Started in Electronics” by Forrest M. Mims III)

    Ohm’s Law

    ohm

    conductor

    current

    How to use Multimeters

    https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/how-to-use-a-multimeter

    Analog Sensor vs Digital Sensor

    When you want to control a volume of a stereo, you need an input that gives range of value like volume knob. When you want to turn on/off the stereo, you need an input device that gives two state, like switches. Let’s say that we call the range of value as analog value and input devices/ sensors that gives the range of value as Analog Sensors, while the two state value will be called as digital value and input devices/ sensors that gives two state value as Digital Sensors. Even though the sensor gives range of input, you can always use it as two state switch as well by programming threashold. Or you can get a range of input from two state sensors, for example counting how many times a button is pushed. So, there never be one kind of sensor is better than the other. You just need to find out what kind of input information you need, or how to interpret the information your sensor gives.

    Building Textile Sensors: Digital

    This week, we will build a digital sensor/ switches. Digital sensors have 2 states, 1(ON) and 0(OFF) while analog sensors have range of states like “half on” between on and off. The idea is simple. You have two conductors (conductive thread, conductive fabric.. or any material that conduct electricity) that has state of touching each other, or not touching each other.

    Here is an example of finger switch. Conductors on each fingers are not electrically connected when your fingers are not touching each other, and when you close your fingers they contact and let the electricity go through.

    You can think of body parts that you could detect two state: touch/not touch, and make this simple contact switch. It can be a finger tip and a palm to detect if your hand is open or not, or your upper arm and side of your body to detect if your arm is held up or down.

    When adding conductive fabric to base fabric, one of the convenient/quick ways is to use fusible interfacing. It is sometimes called bondaweb, iron-on textile glue or vileceline. You will need an iron (or ideally heat press) to use it. The fusible in the material kit is from a company called Bemis.

    If you do not have iron at home, and can not use fusibles, you can also think of other ways to add conductive surfaces on your base fabric. here are some examples. When adding conductive surface, you want to also consider the stretchness of your base material and choose which material and method suits the best.

    Now, you can also try making fabric push button. This is a translation of common mechanical push button into soft fabric material. The idea is again the same. two separate conductors that touch when you push.

    Here are more instruction >> https://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=48

    You can make the button in any shape. You have to think about where your are pushing it, where the conductors should be placed, and how the spacer separates them to achieve two states. The tabs are made so it is easier to connect crocodile clips. If you are designing for specific embedded application, you may not need these tabs.

    You can come up with designs of digital sensor/ switches. Here are some example of digital sensor ideas

    Neoprene Stroke Bracelet >> detail instructions

    Tilt Sensor >> detailed instructions

    Button Switch >> detailed instructions


    To read these sensors with Arduino, please go to this post for further instructions https://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=8601 .

    Materials: Resistive (not so conductive) textile materials

    Eeonyx non woven carbon resistive
    Company: Eeonyx
    Characteristics: Resistive material (2k), non woven, can be used to make pressure or bend sensor.

    Eeonyx stretch woven carbon resistive
    Company: Eeonyx
    Characteristics: Resistive material (2k), knit/ jersey, Stretch in both direction. Can be used to make pressure or stretch sensor.

    Velostat
    Company : 3M
    We bought it from lessEMF, but 3M produces it and there are more retailers. Characteristics: Piezo resistive. Changes its resistance when pressed. Good for pressure sensors.

    Bekinox 50/2 conductive yarn
    Company: Bekaert
    Characteristics: Nm50 2ply conductive yarn, 80% polyester 20% stainless steel, light grey

    Bekinox W12/18 conductive wool
    Company: Bekaert
    Characteristics: Conductive wool is perfect for felting. It is very fine conductive fibers (steel) mixed with normal wool


    Building Textile Sensors: Analog

    Now we try analog sensor. Analog sensors shows range of inputs, like faders or volume knobs on your audio devices. It has range of states. The introduced textile sensors change its electrical resistance. Instead of ON (no resistance) or OFF (infinitely big resistance) it has the range in between the two.

    If you remember the materials we sampled in week2, there were some highly resistive materials that had resistance changing properties. We use these properties to build a sensor. The challenge is to design a surface or an object that accommodate the resistance change when you interact with it. Here are some examples.

    Textile Bend Sensor

    detailed tutorial here>>

    Knit/Crochet sensor

    detailed tutorial here>>

    example with knitting mills>>

    Felt pressure/bend sensor

    how to wet felt>>

    how to wet felt 2>>

    how to needle felt>>

    and there are many more nice tutorials on felting techniques online. please check.

    here are some sensor design that extends the introduced sensors.

    Sticky tape bend sensor

    Bonded Bend Sensor

    Sheath Bend Sensor

    Crochet/Knit Squeeze Sensors

    felted crochet pressure sensor

    Felted Pompom Pressure Sensor

    You can try exploring these other sensor designs, or make your own sensor design.


    to connect Analog sensors, you will need to build voltage dividers. Details are here with an experiment with a multimeter >> https://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=6102

    The code for Arduino and how to connect is explained in this post >> https://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=8601

    Here is the breadboard view and code example from the last exercise in the 2nd day of the course.

    int val;
    int light;
    int freq;
    
    void setup() {
      // start serial communication
     Serial.begin(9600);
     // set the pin connected to LED as OUTPUT
     pinMode(5,OUTPUT);
    }
    
    void loop() {
      // read analog pin:
      val = analogRead(A0);
      // map the sensor reading to analogWrite range 0-255
      light = map(val, 20,200,0,255);  
      light = constrain(light,0,255);
      analogWrite (5,light);
    
      // play sound only when you touch (when the value is bigger/smaller than xxx)
      if (val > 280){
      freq = map(val, 20,200,100,2000);
      freq = constrain(freq,100,2000);
      tone(8,freq,50);
      delay(100);
      }
      else{
        // when not touched, turn off the sound
        noTone(8);
      }
    
      // here is the range fix line for the plotter
      Serial.print(0);
      Serial.print(" ");
      Serial.print(1023);
      Serial.print(" ");
      // print the value reading from the sensor
      Serial.println(val);
      
    }



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