Week 10 Assignment: Circuits and Interactive Wearables

Last weeks workshop with Deren was really exciting for me. Having limited knowledge of circuits, I was empowered by the fact that I was able to accomplish I had never done before in just one class period. I kept thinking about how it could be incorporated into the classroom. I would imagine that students would feel the same empowerment I felt. There is something special about making something you didn't realize you could.

Apart from empowerment, I think it is important for children to be encouraged to think in these ways. It gives them an opportunity to problem solve while still being creative. Also, they could incorporate these circuit skills into their artwork.

I was particularly excited by our brief experiment with the Makey Makey. We hooked up the device to a number of different objects such as bananas, oranges, and bagels. We all took turns trying it out and then we all held hands and let all of our bodies connect the loop.

I really liked this idea of using the body to connect the loop of the circuit in order to make something work. So I experimented with how I could incorporate that into my wearable.

I came up with the idea of make a "Brain Powered Headband" which lights up when you put it against your head, using the forehead to connect the circuit. After trying it out, I realized that the equipment I had wasn't powerful enough. I even tried adding in another battery. The light would turn on, but it was very dim.

So instead, I stuck with the idea of light up headband turning on when placed on the head, but instead did it by using a wire which stuck out slightly from the headband until it was pressed against one's head.

The following images show how one might make it themselves:

This is a sketch I created to help me stay on track. The most important thing to remember is that we are creating a loop. We are using two pieces, connected by various conductive materials. The two pieces are a battery and a light, both include a positive and a negative side. The ultimate goal is to connect to the two positives together and the two negatives together, creating a circle.

Sew the light onto the outside of the headband using conductive thread, starting with the positive side.

On the inside of the headband, beneath the light, sew the battery, connecting the positive of the battery to the positive of the light. This connects the two positives together.

Sew the negative side of the battery to the headband 

Sew a line along the length of the headband the length of your wire. Because my wire was long, so was my line of thread, but if you are using a shorter wire, your line short.

Place a piece of conductive tape from the end of the thread line to the bottom of the headband, running the width of the headband.

Sew the thread into the top of the tape, continuing the circuit into the tape.

Make a whole underneath the negative side of the light.

From the back of your headband, stick your wire through the hole and wrap it around the negative side of the light. 

On the back of the headband, the wire should run towards the tape. When it taps the conductive tape, it will connect the circuit as the negative of the light is now connected to the negative of the battery.

Fasten the wire into the headband by sewing around it. This does not have to be done with conductive thread. In this case, the conductive thread is not serving any service other than fastening the wire, it is just what I had available.

Bend the end of the wire so that it is not touching the tape.

Test it out: press the wire down as it would when pressed against one's head.

The circuit is complete and the light is lit!

This exploration was really fun for me and I learned a lot. I even learned after creating the directions that I could have changed a few things to make it easier. This is definitely something I would like to work with further perhaps incorporating sound or movement.

I enjoyed searching for other examples of wearable technology, but found this Wearable Forest Dress most interesting. The following is a clip of a youtube video demonstrating the dress:

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/5634278

You can see the full length video in which the artists explain how the dress works here.

Artists Ryoko Ueoka, Hiroki Kobayashi and Michitaka Hirose from the University of Tokyo created this Wearable Forest dress which not only includes led lights and embedded speakers, but is connected to wireless link to the internet which streams the sounds in real time from a remote forest. The speakers play the sounds from the forest and the lights reflect the sounds.

The idea here is for the person wearing the dress to be able to connect with nature, even in the middle of the city.

Although the video is hard to see, I think the end result is quite beautiful.