AngelaSheehan

I love the Drawdio and have been meaning to buy one to play with for quite some time. Well, this weekend I finally got one in the mail and immediately started to brainstorm how to incorporate it into soft circuit projects. I ended up soldering some snaps to the board’s contacts so I could easily put it in some prototypes. Here is one I made last night, a jellyfish-like puppet that you wear on your hand and ‘play’ like an instrument by touching conductive patches on its tentacles.

Drawdio Jellyfish Puppet from Angela M. Sheehan on Vimeo.

More pics and info are over at my blog Soft Circuit Saturdays.

Tuesday afternoon from 12-6pm, participants engaged in hands-on work and collaboration in 18 studio sessions held throughout the Media Lab building. Here are a few highlights of the studios that centered around wearable technologies, biofeedback, and soft sensors.

Measuring Biological Signals: Concepts and Practice, led by Sean Montgomery

Left: Sean during the workshop
Right: Vital Threads Feedback Apparel (image via ProduceConsumeRobot)

This workshop concentrated on biological signals as a way to “create dynamic new forms of self awareness, personal expression and interpersonal communication.” The topics covered were galvanic skin response (GSR), heart rate (EKG), and brain activity (EEG). More information on this workshop can be found here.

BodyHack Workshop, led by Daito Manabe

Muscle sensors and electrical stimulation enabled participants to use the body as an input and/or output device through a computer. The workshop also addressed harvesting the sensory data. Some photos from a previous workshop can be viewed here. Get the full experience of the BodyHack in action below (also from a previous workshop).

Making Textile Sensors from Scratch, led by Hannah Perner-Wilson

Left: Materials in the studio after the workshop
Right: A stroke sensor out of conductive thread (image via Instructables)

Building textile-based interfaces out of low-cost materials was the focus of this workshop. Participants made custom sensors with a variety of techniques including knitting, sewing, and felting to make bend sensors, stroke sensors, potentiometers, and more. Learn about the workshop and download a pdf here.

Wireless Wearables, led by Rob Faludi and Kate Hartman

Left: Putting together “Superhero Communicator Cuffs”
Right: My finished project I attended this studio sesson, which was an introduction to wearables using the Lilypad XBee. It covered various soft circuit techniques and projects using radio communication. We created “Superhero Communicator Cuffs” as a fun exploration of wireless communication between two XBees. This workshop was also taught at NYCResistor, you can see more pics and a video here.

TEI Studios from jay silver on Vimeo.

I just got home from TEI, what an amazing experience! I was lucky enough to attend TEI on the first year that hands-on studio sessions were a part of the program. Here is a video that Jay Silver, one of the studio chairs, compiled for you all to enjoy. For more information on the studios offered visit the TEI site. There were a few studios focusing on wearables and interacting with the body. I attended the Wireless Wearables session and you can see a few of our projects throughout the video. We used Xbee radios to make “Super Hero Cuffs” that communicated with a partner. I’m in the process of downloading all my pictures and videos and putting together a longer recap later on in the week. Can’t wait to share with you all.

TEI kicked off today with a great opening keynote by Professor John Frazer, who gave an overview of his work and a brief history of how Tangible Interfaces have evolved over the years. Two paper sessions followed, the first focusing on “Bridging the Physical and Digital Worlds” and the second “Toolkits and Enabling Technologies”. For more on paper topics visit TEI’s program page. In the afternoon the demo room was open so participants could touch/feel and experience some of the projects talked about throughout the conference.

Tangible Lightscapes by Alice Pintus

I had a chance to talk with Bio Circuit Vest creators Holly Schmidt and Dana Ramler and see the garment in person as they demonstrated it. I got to peek inside and see how it worked – it is a beautiful, well constructed piece.

Bio Circuit Vest (image via http://www.danaramler.com)

I also caught up with Jie Qi who is at the conference to present the Electronic Popable Book she worked on with Leah Buechley. We are both going to be attending the Wireless Wearables studio session tomorrow, can’t wait to get making! There were so many projects to see, I took a lot of pictures (they are in my album TEI Conference). I’ve got some videos that I will post once I get them edited. Stay tuned for some more updates as the conference continues.

Right now I am challenging myself to make a soft circuit project every weekend and this week’s project was a coffee sleeve with LEDs and a temperature sensor from Aniomagic. It was inspired by their tutorial on ‘smart coaster’ and translated from plastic/wired to a fleece and soft version.

Above is a pic of the finished sleeve – the LEDs turn red when my drink is too hot, and green when it is ‘just right’. More pictures at my flickr account. More on the process at my project blog: Soft Circuit Saturdays.