Check out the the techno-twist on Paper Doll Kits!

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/03/29/100329fa_fact_jacobs
http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/app

LilyPad Heart Hoodie

Here's a fun project to build with an Arduino LilyPad designed by imakefunthings. He used a LilyPad kit, an Open Heart Kit http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MKJR1&Show=TechSpecs and snaps.

Step by step instructions are on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/imakefunthings/4435582558/in/set-72157623625160334/

Baseball is pitched Smart Textiles

Elbow injuries suffered by pitchers in Major League Baseball occur frequently and result in tens of millions of dollars in losses each season, representing the money that must be paid in salaries to pitchers who cannot perform due to injury.

To address this issue, three Northeastern University engineering students have developed a data-logging uniform shirt for pitchers that can help prevent elbow injuries while providing an electronic analysis of pitching mechanics.

See: http://www.northeastern.edu/news/stories/2010/02/baseball_shirt.html and http://www.plusplasticelectronics.com/HealthWellbeing/Smart-textile-baseball-shirt-to-be-ready-for-market-in-2010-12041.aspx for more info.

Clothtylophone

This touch key cross-stitching plays like a piano. The insides connects snaps, conductive thread and LilyPad Arduino

See a demonstration at http://www.flickr.com/photos/syano/4423882923/in/set-72157623592431374/

Win the Know-It-All Bag parts from SparkFun!!

SparkFun and Knitty.com has joined up for a contest to give away the LilyPad Arduino parts to make your own Know-it-all Bag! Just blog how you would use the Know-it-all Bag. But hurry...the contest ends March 26th! http://knitty.com/blog/?p=131

The Know-it-all Knitting Bag

This is an amazing use of the Arduino LilyPad created by Kalani Craig..."It knows your row number, the chart for your stitch pattern, and where you are in that stitch pattern."

See the detailed instructions on how to make your own bag at http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEss10/PATTknowitall.php  with a link to a YouTube video. Photos are posted on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/10754648@N08/sets/72157623477844329/

Also visit http://www.hapagirl.com/2010/03/21/a-geeks-paradise-the-know-it-all-knitting-bag/ for the bakcstory of the bag.

Apple Hires Wearable Computing Engineer

by Nick Bilton NYTimes

Apple has hired Richard DeVaul, a veteran of the wearable computing field and co-founder of AWare Technologies, a technology company focused on creating products for the fitness and “wellness” markets.

According to Computerworld, Mr. DeVaul will be a senior prototype scientist at Apple, presumably working on some of the technologies he discusses on his blog:

I’m an expert in signal processing and real-time statistical classification techniques. This means that I know how to make tiny computers do “thin slicing,” as popularized in Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink.” It’s all about extracting the small pieces of information that are most meaningful.

What does this work mean for us mere mortals? According to Mr. DeVaul’sLinkedIn page, he received a Ph.D. in media arts and sciences from theMassachusetts Institute of Technology and while there worked on a project called “The Memory Glasses,” which offered real-time memory support that could “improve your performance on a memory recall task by a factor of about 63 percent without distracting you.”

In other words, these fancy glasses could probably help you remember where you left your car keys.

While at M.I.T. he also worked directly with Professor Alex Pentland in theHuman Dyanmics group. This group works on the intersection of humans and technology, and using sensors and the data that these wearable devices can share, to try to predict human behavior.

Although wearable computers are not necessarily a new idea, Apple helped push the concept further into the mainstream in 2006 when it partnered withNike to introduce the Nike+ line of sneakers. This product wirelessly connects to an iPod and tracks the distance and pace of a person’s run.

There’s no telling what’s next for Apple and this market. Maybe we’ll finally see a pair of wearable iPod glasses based on a series of 2008 patents for head-mounted displays. Or maybe the company will try to create new additions to the iPhone by offering attachments and sensors. One thing’s for sure, these technologies will continue to spread into our clothing, sneakers and maybe even our glasses.

Check it out!

Looks like Ben's POV wristband just hit the big time! It's on the front page of both Instructables and Craftzine:
http://blog.craftzine.com/
http://www.instructables.com/

Bee Puppet - Bee Sim Interactive Game

The Bee puppet is part of an interactive game for children learning about hive activity of bees, including pollination, by playing the role of the bee. The bee puppet sits velcroed on top of the glove hiding the main board, x-bee and LiPower. Three LEDs are sewn into the glove exposed on a finger (represents the flower pollen strength). The battery is hidden inside the bee body cavity sewn onto plastic mesh to help form the body shape.

The RGB sensor (game ticking clock) & 3 additional LEDs (represents bee pollen gathered) were sewn first sewn directly onto the puppet for the first prototype. However, it was quickly seen that total access was needed to the boards below the puppet, therefore the second iteration had the RGB sensor and LEDs sewn onto felt buttons, then buttoned through the bee cavity onto the bee neck and abdomen (glass beads were used to insulate the conductive thread) This design was chosen to not only allow easy access for repairs, but also to allow the glove to be interchanged with other insect puppets to examine their activity habits.

During the Bee Sim game the child/bee interacts with flowers, some with conductive material with a variety of hidden resistors beneath the felt flower center and some without conductive material (representing no pollen). After the child gathers the pollen they must return to the beehive before their energy runs out (as represented on the RGB sensor) where the pollen is dropped off and recorded/accumulated by the computer hive through the use of the xbee.

Est Today-Join the Fashion Revolution

Where can a young girl go when she wants to create a wardrobe all her own? No, not the mall, where grown-ups have already created pieces for her, but to her computer, where she can tap into her inner design maven and call her own style shots. Poised to transform the way young girls interact with and purchase clothing, Est. Today is an online fashion studio that gives tweens the creative license and platform to create, showcase and buy clothing they design themselves.

"Est. Today is all about handing over fashion control to the girls," says CEO David Cote. "By giving them the collaborative tools and guidance to design their own fashion, and allowing them to share these designs with their friends, we're starting a Fashion Revolution based on empowerment."

Join the Revolution at http://www.esttoday.com/!

To Charge your iPod, Plug in Your Jeans

For those trying to figure out where to sew the battery...this is amazing news!

A breakthrough in wearable computing lets researchers change ordinary cotton and polyester into electronic textiles that can double as rechargeable batteries. That means powering an iPod or cell phone could become as easy as plugging it into your tee shirt or jeans and charging the clothing overnight.

“Energy textiles will change the development of wearable electronics,” Liangbing Hu, one of the researchers from Stanford University involved in the project told Wired.com. “There are not that many solutions available for energy storage for wearable devices. Electronic textiles tries to solve that problem.”

Wearable electronics is an attempt to create a new category of devices that are flexible and lightweight such as wearable displays, embedded health monitors and textiles with electronics melded in. In case of textiles, though, most attempts, so far, to integrate electronics involve patching sensors and resistors on to existing fabric.

The latest attempt tries to bring the electronics to the molecular level. The researchers coated cellulose and polyester fibers with ‘ink’ made from single-walled carbon nanotubes. The nanotubes are electrically conductive carbon fibers barely 1/50,000 the width of a human hair.

The process of dyeing with this special ink is similar to that used for dyeing fibers and fabrics in the textile industry, they say. Details of the method were published in a paper in the ACS’ Nano Letters journal.

The coating makes the fibers highly conductive by turning them into porous conductors. The treated textiles can then be used as electrodes and standard textiles used as separators to creates fully stretchable supercapacitors. Ordinary capacitors are used to store energy. Supercapacitors can offer turbocharge that principle such that the capacitor can be charged and discharged virtually an unlimited number of times.

“If you have a high surface area, you can store a high amount of charges,” says Hu. “Since we coat carbon nanotubes on textile fibers, it increases the surface and allows for charge and discharge cycles up to one million times,” says Hu.

The electronic textiles produced by this method retain the flexibility and stretchability of regular cotton and polyester. They also kept their electronic properties despite simulated repeated laundering, say the researchers.

The next step is to combine it with inks of other materials that could help turn the fabric into wearable solar cells and batteries.

The researchers are also looking to use graphene, a form of carbon derived from graphite oxide, instead of carbon nanotubes. “Graphene can be much cheaper than nanotubes,” says Hu, “so alternative materials like that could significantly reduce the cost of energy textiles.”

Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/01/e-textile-charge/#ixzz0dgMOWlHH

Destination DIY Podcasts

Dearest Listeners,

I hope 2010 is treating you well thus far. Thank you so much for helping to launching Destination DIY towards some exciting new things in the year ahead. In just a few months, you'll be hearing new hour-long shows on topics such as DIY economy, Doing It Ourselves (creative projects that require collective action) and more! Destination DIY is coming into this year with a lot of good work to do.

Of course, good work is always more satisfying when it involves good friends. Thanks for the boost you gave Destination DIY towards funding the production of our next batch of episodes. Our supporters hail from such diverse locations as Portland, Cambridge, Madison, Brooklyn, Paris and Kamakura, Japan. I'm happy to say we're well on our way to enough funds to compensate a sound engineer and contributing producers for the next five episodes. ...

http://www.destinationdiy.com/index.html

Soft Circuits -- CO2 Detecting Dress

Read more at:

http://softcircuit.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/image-11.png

Check out Pong Prom from Ed Keeble

http://dvice.com/archives/2009/12/pong-prom-turns.php

You're already familiar with the classic game, Pong: there are two paddles, one on each side of the screen, and you try to keep the ball that bounces between them from flying off your side. Well, a chap by the name of Ed Keeble has decide to update the revered title, but with a sexy twist. Instead of using a joystick, two players control their paddles by slow dancing with one another.

An accelerometer built into each suit keeps track of each player's swaying and guides each paddle back and forth accordingly, as Keeble describes it: "The project uses the Lilypad Arduino platform to control game play, run the display, and communicate between devices. Patches of conductive fabric on the shoulders, hips, and cuffs of the shirts are used to create a serial connection between the Arduinos. An accelerometer attached at the back of the neck allows each player to control their game paddle by rocking their partner back and forth."

Lighted Wedding Dress by Alison Lewis

Check out this lovely creation at http://www.iheartswitch.com/

Designer Duo Create a Dress With 24,000 LEDs

From Wired Website by Priya Ganapati:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/11/led-dress/

Photo: J.B. Spector/the Museum of Science and Industry

Next time you compliment a woman at a party that’s she glowing, it may literally be so. Two London-based designers have created a dress embroidered with 24,000 full color LEDs .
Called the ‘Galaxy Dress’ it claims to be the largest wearable display in the world and will be the center piece of an exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/exhibits/fastforward/

“We used the smallest full-color LEDs, flat like paper, and measuring only 2 by 2 mm,” say designers Francesca Rosella and Ryan Genz in an email. “The circuits are extra-thin, flexible, and hand embroidered on a layer of silk in a way that gives it stretch so the LED fabric can move like normal fabric with lightness and fluidity.” The duo run an interactive clothing company called CuteCircuit.

To diffuse the LED light, the dress has four layers of silk chiffon and a pleated silk organza crinoline skirt. The extra-thin electronics allows the dress to follow the body shape closely like with normal fabric.

Instead of having one large and heavy battery, the dress is designed to run on many tiny iPod batteries hiding in the crinoline, says Rosella. “They are not visible or uncomfortable,” she says.
With the batteries, the Galaxy Dress wearer can walk around–all lit up–for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour.

The areas without LEDs are decorated with more than 4000 hand-applied Swarovski crystals that range from clear crystal to bright pink. “The dress looks good even when it is switched off,” say the designers.


See a video of the LED Dress that, according to the designers, consumes about the same electricity as two household bulbs. (Warning...the video is mesmerizing!)

Diana Eng Visits MIT Media Lab

Diana Eng, who you might remember as Project Runway's premiere nerd designer, took a look at MIT's Media Lab and found some pretty cool stuff, including Scratch, the LilyPad, Teardrop-run wallpaper. Check it out:

http://gizmodo.com/5399548/mit-media-lab-electronic-wallpaper-conductive-threads-and-more

Iterations of The Cocktail Dress

This is in interesting look at the iterative process of research, development and testing taken from a blog site entitled UPLOADING: Elizabeth's Adventures in ITP. Below are excerpts from her blog.

This week’s assignment was to create a piece that monitors the body and logs the information. I need one inward focused sensor and one outward focused sensor. By this, I mean that there must be one sensor that is taking in readings from the body (heart rate, temperature, posture, sweat) and another sensor that is taking readings from the environment (brightness, location, pictures, surrounding sounds) This could be logged with a cellphone, computer, or specially devoted logging device.

The good news: the dress works. At least, the dress works in terms of taking in data, broadcasting it to the computer, and writing it to a data file. The problem is, while the measurements are accurate, they do not not accomplish the exact task I set for them.

The first version of the above Cocktail Dress and full post with coding can be read about at: http://itpblog.efuller.net/?p=1151#more-1151

The cocktail dress as worn for the the readings. The accelerometer is tucked in the hair with the wires coming out in what looks like a loose strand of hair and running to the chest where the rest of the electronics are housed. Measurements as followed: nodding (x-axis, 400-460/down-up), shaking head (y-axis, 570-500/right-left)

For more on the Cocktail Dress Version 2, read the full blog at: http://itpblog.efuller.net/?p=1172#more-1172

Version 3: The Twitter headpiece—version 3 of the original Cocktail Dress with electronics now combined into one small piece.

Back side to Flitter, revealing components: lilypad arduino, accelerometer, ultrasonic range sensor, bluetooth, batteries, and switch.
Read the full blog on Version 3 at: http://itpblog.efuller.net/?p=1176#more-1176

Data was collected using the device, however radio interference (always an invisible force at events) at the ITP 30th anniversary at IAC. For full blog see: http://itpblog.efuller.net/?p=1204#more-1204

Sound Reactive Garment

The nightgown reacts to high voice levels and was made as a result of the 56 day performance. The nightgown illustrates increased sensitivity within the relationship.

The gown was made with the Lilypad Arduino, flexinol, microphone, and 2 relay switches.

See video and more pictures at http://sarahlayne.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/soundreactivegarment/

Korean Computing Technology Show 2009

The Next Generation Computing Technology Show 2009 presented state-of-art Korean IT Technology under the theme "IT RE*connect." Featured technologies of human computing, cloud computing, and green computing demonstrated a fantastic performance with harmony among humanity, technology, and nature. This will provide a new message for future generations.

For full story go to: http://www.koreaittimes.com/story/5454/clothes-e-textile-materials