PolySense Swatch(es)
I made two swatches for our PolySense experiment this week. I started with a cotton T-shirt because I thought it would be pretty absorbent and I like that it has a bit of stretch. The bright green color was intentional as well because I was unsure whether the PolySense process would affect the color at all. I was interested in trying out the batik method, using wax to mask portions of the fabric.
It seemed a little daunting to learn to batik in a day and I read in the PolySense documentation that you could use hot glue to do some masking … so that’s what I did. I sketched out a design, it is meant to look a bit like PCB traces and then I applied hot glue to the negative areas. I have no idea how this might end up behaving, maybe the “traces” or “vias” might work as pressure sensors. However, I had a realization that the traces are not independent of each other because I didn’t do this masking on the bottom side of the swatch … so they’re all connected, whoops!
I also wanted to experiment with conductive thread. I realize the whole swatch should become conductive after the bath, but I sewed this tic-tac-toe shape into the swatch in hopes that it might behave as a matrix and give you some location information about where pressure is applied. Alligator clips could be attached to the tabs on the edges of the swatch and go to different pins of a microcontroller. I’m not convinced this will work like I hope it should, but it’s really just a thought experiment. I also added some fabric paint for fun and just to see how it will look after the process.
Final Project Idea
Right around the pandemic hit my mom developed a chronic cough that was eventually determined to be caused by the air pollution in Phoenix where she lives. This project would be an art piece. It’s comprised of a wired ribcage that will be “softened” with felt or fabric of some sort. Inside there will be paper bag “lungs” and acrylic “heart” which will beat in certain rhythms based on current air quality readings from an API. There might be a condition that could trigger the sculpture to “cough”. This project idea would be a combined final for my Connected Devices course.
Project proposal quad chart
Next steps:
Buy paper bags and test with programmable air
Order pump (does it need a controller?) and neopixels from Adafruit
Research wire puppet making and think through how you will build the ribcage so that it will be able to stand on it’s own
Identify the correct API and start gathering some data
Integrate pump and neopixels into code
Build heart