Month: March 2016

Wearables: Spring Break Thoughts

This past week was Spring Break and since I had already had a trip planned, I wasn’t able to as much fabrication as I would have liked and the little that I did do broke. However, this turned out to be a blessing.

I started working on the idea of mirroring gloves.  They were supposed to capture hand gestures. Then based on those movements, it would either encourage another user to match those or rate how the other user matches. However, during testing of the flex sensors in a glove, one of them broke.  In the frustration, I started to think more about what I really wanted to get out of this class. Not only do I want to learn about wearables and what is their purpose, I also want a refresher on sewing and making soft sensors. Because of this, I have decided to once again alter my idea a bit once again.

I still want to explore body language but I am going to take a broader approach and not stick with just mirroring hand gestures. In class, someone suggested making something that would show different types of body language and this is where I plan to go.  My idea is to make a shirt (although, I would like to make a dress) that based on where you place your arms, it will show a different output.  I will use a mixture of contact buttons,  flex sensors, and possibly accelerometers to monitor these movements.  I think as of right now, it will be a visual output with multiple leds in a pattern for each movement but I also think there is something useful in sound.

I am much more excited about this and now have a plan for my outcome and even my documentation.  Since I decided on this idea this afternoon, I don’t have much to show.  I plan to make a fabric button tomorrow and I am currently looking at patterns for how to make the shirt.  I am currently working on sketches for what it will be and filling out the past survey on what this will be about.  I will add all of these later.

After all of the emotion and thought, I feel complete relief to finally see what I will be doing.  I’m still nervous on how behind I am but I think being out of the web of uncertainty is helping to encourage my motivation to start.

 

 

Note: Also, I am very appreciative of everything that happened in class. Although, it was completely terrifying and I felt emotionally naked, I am glad to have had that experience.  It was not only eye opening on how I need to get better at sharing my thoughts but also in how supportive people can be.

Wearables: A Restart

Since KC and I have decided to go our separate ways on the project, I have been trying to brainstorm new ideas.  However, I have still found this to be a struggle as the projects seem so similar to others.  I also am struggling with how much technology needs to play a part.  I know that wearables aren’t necessarily defined by their technology but I am also wanting to use this as a learning opportunity.  With these being my main issues, I have started brainstorming some possibilities.

As perviously discussed, I like the idea of using body language as a subject for this.  I read through Center for Nonverbal Studies and am still processing as it was a lot of information.  When I originally wanted to do body language, I wanted something that decipher every part but I now know that’s unrealistic.  So I started thinking more about which parts I liked and found that I like the idea of eye contact.  This brought me to the conceptualized idea of glasses that light up your eyes when you are focused on another person who is wearing a similar pair.  In my head, the lighting of your eye would drown out other light allowing you to focus on the other persons eyes that are lit up.  Obviously this wouldn’t be a commercial product but I find that to me it is an interesting idea to play with.

The other idea that came out of this research was the idea of waiting.  I realized I have been thinking about waiting a lot but never really thought about what could be done with it until tonight.  Waiting has such a profound effect on people that I would like to explore a project on this.  However, I am unsure on what type of wearable could solve this.

Throughout this whole process there has been a lot of stress and because of this, I also am thinking about the idea of a stress relieving shirt.  This could be explored by using different textures to grab onto or relax with.  Almost like a bubble wrap for your body.

The next idea I came up with was reinventing the friendship necklaces.  For this, it would be exploring what a friendship necklace is meant to be.  I could do a basic technology of them lighting up when put together but I think I would want more than that.  Perhaps sensing the other person’s presences or giving you sense of their mood (not sure how this would be possible.)

 

I know that these are all thoughts in different directions and I am scared about how behind I am on prototyping.  I learned a lot from making the basic circuit with the project with KC but now with starting back at square one this week, it makes me scared of not finishing this project.  I seem to have an issue with deciding on a project that I think is actually a good idea and second guess everything. I plan to present these in class for this week.