Maker Faire NYC is less than a week away! I'm excited for all of you who are able to attend and, for those who can't (like myself) — don't worry — we will have coverage of the Faire in the upcoming weeks.

There is an amazing body of work in wearable technology that will be on display. I've scoured the schedule and created a list of Makers and their amazing projects for ya'all.

Have fun everybody! And if I happen to miss something here please LMK.

Animal Inspired Defensive Dresses

Playful, cocktail party-camouflaged dresses with hidden talents depict ways humans could benefit from and appropriate animal defensive behaviors into their clothing. 
My three wearable art pieces are designed respectively to inflate like a blowfish when the wearer is intimidated, to imitate the defensive, quill-erecting behavior of porcupines, and to mimic the ability to self-amputate a limb like a lizard.

Web site

Body Sound Suit

New media artist Balam Soto will demonstrate how to use his “body sound suit”. The suit generates sound through body movement utilizing sensors, wireless xbee modules and lily pad arduinos. Try out the technology that drives these suits!

Web site


A Skirt Full of Stars and other interactive garments

Imagine a skirt that sparkles with a rainbow of colors as you walk, dance, and twirl. The Skirt Full of Stars is an illuminated, interactive garment using the Lilypad Arduino platform - it gathers information about the wearer's movement, then translates that into changing colors for the integrated fiber optic lights. Also shown will be a motion responsive hat and belt based on the skirt's electronics.

Web site

fabrick.it

fabrick.it is a collection of wearable electronic modules or “bricks” that make it easy to construct simple or complex wearable projects. Bricks connect to each other with a flexible, 3-wire conductive fabric ribbon. The fabrick.it bricks and ribbon approach streamlines the construction of wearable projects, making them more reliable, attractive and ready-to-wear.

The fabrick.it collection includes a removable, rechargeable lithium-polymer battery brick, LED brick with built-in resistor and a snap connector brick which makes connections fast and easy.

Web site

Fluid Sculpture

Knitting of clear plastic tubing into sculptures and clothing. Colored fluids and air are pumped through the tubes to create dynamic textiles.

Web site

FSP

Felted Signal Processing is an on-going collaboration between sisters Sarah and Lara Grant. They work with fiber and electronics for the purpose of creating a series of experiments that serve as a tactile interface for shaping and controlling sound and video. They believe that natural fibers and soft conductive materials, such as wool and fabrics make a more germane interface similar to the organic nature of video and music composition. Material exploration and the designs of alternative soft interfaces also feed back into the expanding frontier of wearable technology and electronic textile culture. Exhibiting & demos on how to felt and soft circuitry.

Web site

Life Dress

The Life Dress is an organically inspired piece of tech couture modeling the Game of Life. Handmade tiles with embedded circuitry are composed to run the Game of Life algorithm developed by John Conway. The algorithm models cell life through a simple set of rules applied to squares on a grid. Whether a cell is born, survives, or dies is determined by the condition of surrounding cells. These rules are visualized as dynamic patterns of light on the tiles of the dress. It is through the shared existence of the cells, or, indeed, people, that any survive and illuminated animations occur.

Web site

Nudgeables

Nudgeables are an evolving set of accessories that allow the wearer to nudge a companion from a short distance away. These devices are inspired by "signals" (scratching the nose, a cough, "the look") or backchannel exchanges (text messages sent across a room) that are used for discrete communication in broader social contexts.

Web site

Vital Threads Biofeedback Apparel

Clothing that measures and displays the wearer's biological signals to open fashion to dynamic new forms of self awareness, personal expression and interpersonal communication. 

Three works include: 
Heart-felt Shirt - Lights up with the wearer's heart beat. 
Truth Wristband - Displays emotional arousal. 
Thinking Cap - Displays brain activity.

Web site

Wearable Control Interface: Touchpad Pants

Demo of interactivity and group computing using a soft circuit interface device. Flexible XY touchpads made using resistive fabric sensors are embedded onto pants. Demonstrating their use for single and group computer interactions and explanation of how they are made.

Web site

Soft Circuit Saturdays

Soft Circuit Saturdays is a collection of projects that combine electronics, sewing, crafts, and technology. Every Saturday Angela researches, experiments, and plays with e-textiles, soft circuits, and electronics. Then she shares techniques/tutorials and pictures of works-in-progress on her blog.

Web site

eTextiles Fashion Show

eTextile, smart clothing, wearable computer fashion show.
http://www.lbruning.com/maker-faire/maker-faire-fashion-show/" target="_blank">Web site

date: 26 September 2010
location: New York Hall of Science
producer: Lynne Bruning

Diana Eng Fashion Show

September 25, 2010 at 2pm

A fashion show of clothing that uses deployable structures, microcontrollers, inflatables, accelerometers to transform, change color and pattern.

Web site


Blending Craft and Technology at High-Low Tech



Center Stage Sunday 1:00 PM - 1:30 PM

This talk will describe ways that we blend technology and craft in our research group at the MIT Media Lab. We'll explain and demonstrate how electronics and computation can be combined with paper, paint, fabric, and wood. We'll then discuss how working with technology as a craft material can change technology, craft, design, and art communities in powerful and surprising ways.

Web site