E-Textiles Challenge 1

This week we are learning how to use E-Textiles, which is essentially putting electronics into fabric/clothing.

I am in a group with Ben and Corvo. We didn't have too much trouble deciding on what to do which was nice.

Since we are a group of three we have double the amount of resources, so we have a bit more freedom to make something bigger. We agreed on making a t-shirt with a quote from a podcast.

Our idea will be to have a black shirt with "Mostly void. Partially stars." written up by the left shoulder, and then some small stars painted on as well as some that twinkle.

Specifics:

-The fabric of the shirt is cotton

-It would have to be rather durable to be worn frequently

-It would be preferable for the circuit not to be seen, but it doesn't really matter if it is

-Yes, the battery will be on the inside of the sleeve which will give it easy access

Assumptions:

-Battery will have to be replaced frequently

-Will have to be careful about bumping into stuff with the battery on arm

Restrictions:

-Limited materials

-Limited time

-Coordinating with group

At this point we do not have the circuit fully sewn in, but this is the plan for the circuit in drawn form:

It has 4 lights connected to each twinkler, and one connected to each battery.

Each set of 5 lights connects to one major negative line that goes back to their battery.

This is how the circuit looks when put together:

You can see that there are three lights on at this point. Those being the one that is connected directly to the battery (making it stay on forever) and two others that are connected to the twinkler.

Being connected to the twinkler means that they will come on at random intervals, sometimes more than one at a time, resulting in situations like the one seen above.

When fully complete the shirt looked like this:

I am very happy with how it turned out in the end. The lights are tightly fastened and they all twinkle very well.

Reflection:

I would say that I learned a lot during this challenge. I got to experiment using circuits in real life as opposed to just learning about them in science class, and I learned a lot about how electricity works in general.

I would say that the ideas part of it went very well. We all agreed very early on and were able to get to work designing how we were going to make it. Everything seemed to work fine in the preparations and tests, and (it seems) we all had a very good understanding of how it worked.

The actual putting it together part has been a little more difficult. Probably due to the fact that we have double the resources as others it is taking a bit longer than usual. As well as the fact that only one of us can actually sew.

The final product is very nice in my opinion. The placement of the lights is pleasing to look at, and the structure of the whole thing does seem quite sturdy.

If we were to do anything like this again I would probably try to take more responsibility in the work, if only to make sure that it actually gets done on time. And I would probable want to have a bit more time to think of something very cool to do instead of just using whatever we had on hand.