e-textile

Collaboration on Smart Textile development in Borås

Birgitta — Mon, 12 Sep 2016 12:06:08 +0000

RHYME member Birgitta Cappelen have started an collaboration with Dr. Delia Dumitrescu who is a reseacher in the field of Smart Textiles at Borås School of Textile. Borås School of Textile is the leading school and environment within Smart Textile and Textile Design in the world.

The project is to develop a new textile for sensorial and musical interaction. Textile which has a soft and sensorial stimulation qualities, in combination with transparency to transmit light and roughness to handle the rough use. In addition the textile has to have the ability to embed electronics into the textile.

We have worked from different angles, providing aesthetically and sensorial qualities by exploring combinations of yarn like cotton, wool, viscose, polyamid, polyester to high tech yarns like mono filament, pemotec and thermoformable yarns.

We have worked with different structures/patterns to embedd the technology like light, sensors, actuators and wires.

We have worked with different forms of knitting techniques from jacquard knitting to complex and simpler forms of tubular structures.

We have explored different forms of knitting machines from tubular machines to complex flat beds.

We have worked in different scales from many small samples to larger moch-ups and prototypes to be.

Polly World exhibition at Kunst og Designhall in Oslo

Birgitta — Sun, 12 Apr 2015 12:52:13 +0000

At 18.00 on Tuesday April 14th is the opening of the first public exhibition of Polly World at Kunst og Designhall HiOA (old Art Academy in St. Olavgate 32). Polly World will also be open for visitors from 16.00 to 19.00 on Wednesday April 15, Thursday April 16 and Friday April as part of the conference “Aesthetics and Children with Special Needs“.

During the conference both RHYME member Karette Stænseth, Anders-Petter Anderssson and Birgitta Cappelen will make presentations/talks about different perspectives on RHYME, related to the conference theme.

Polly World on Vimeo

Birgitta — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 11:23:45 +0000

We have created a little video about the physical interaction i Polly World (not the social screen based App interaction). The video is shot by Alexandre Chapell and edited by Mariko Rhode and Birgitta Cappelen. Thanks to Sara, Anders and Berit and their children for their contribution.

RHYME at ArcInTex

Birgitta — Fri, 14 Mar 2014 22:28:55 +0000

RHYME member Birgitta Cappelen was invited to speak on this year’s ArcInTex conference in Gothenburg. The title of her lecture was “Designing Component Based Smart Textile” and concerned the ongoing work with developing textile solutions for 4th Generation of Co-creative Tangibles, named Polly. The idea is to combine perspectives from the Textile and Computational traditions into a new concept of Smart Textile. From the Textile tradition we have modular thinking in Patchwork were we reuse used materials into creating new artefacts. In our Folk Costume tradition we also have modular parts like the belt and chest part (in Norwegian “bringeduk“) which can be added, inherited and used in another costume. Development in Carpet Tile Industry, from being a material to a service provider, is also an important inspiration. In the Computational tradition we have the tradition of modularity and components in both hardware components and in different forms of Component based software architecture. In developing RHYME Co-creative tangibles, Polly, we use both these lines of thoughts to structure the Smart Textile vertically and horizontally. Horizontally as different surface areas of sensors and sensorially stimulating surfaces. Vertically as layers, from the textile surface and shape, via hardware components, different functions and services to the data protocols (USB, Twitter, TCP/IP ).

Developing 4th generation, distributed and social media

Birgitta — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 12:33:55 +0000

Currently we are working intensively with the development of the 4th generation of Co-creative Tangibles. The 4th generation of Co-creative Tangibles are in the project plan defined as “distributed and social media”. In the RHYME project this means that the users can co-create across different media, space and time. For instance that a sibling can interact through a smartphone or tablet from another place, with her sister or brother and the Co-creative Tangibles at home.

In the 4th generation we try to accomplish, develop and realize as many of the ideas, suggestions and wishes as possible, that we have received from the users, care persons, families and experts from several fields throughout the whole project. These many ideas, suggestions and wishes have been articulated through participation in the many workshops, tests, interviews, discussions and observations during the whole RHYME project.

Some of the users’ wishes, such as dynamic microphone input to the music together with different forms of sensorial stimulating input sensors in a mobile interactive thing, has been a major technological challenge. These user wishes have compelled us to develop six different hardware platforms throughout the project, which was not something we planned to do, but had to do because of its importance for the users and music therapists.

Including direct light response and projection in the tangible objects has also been an important user demand that has been a great design challenge. We try to include and prioritize as many user wishes as possible into a new 4th generation of distributed and social co-creative tangibles with new shapes, structures, surfaces, hardware, software, music, set design, positive experiences and mastery levels, personalization and interaction forms. Here are some pictures from the ongoing development process:

New hardware solutions under development:

New shapes under development:

New materials, surfaces and joinery under development:

New light solutions under development:

New APP with graphical user interface under development:

4th Generation Hardware under development

Birgitta — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:46:12 +0000

During the RHYME project so far we have developed a number of hardware platforms. This has been necessary because existing platforms (smartphone, Arduino e.g.) do not directly offer the functionality and combinations we need, regarding diverse sensors and actuators such as light and speakers. It has been a huge challenge to create the hardware we wanted and needed to offer the best possibilities for our users. We have put a lot of time and effort into it, much more than we originally planned, because the current mobile technology still have major weaknesses . The main challenges we have been working on are:
– real time sound synthesis with low enough latency (response time) for musical interaction.
– sufficient sound quality in terms of loudness, frequency range,
and noise floor in mobile wireless objects.
– battery, both how it is charged, used and integrated as well as how long it lasts.
– combining input from microphone and other sensors in the same mobile object.
– wireless connection and speed related to real time dynamic sound interaction.
– light and sensor integration in soft and sensorial stimulating materials.

Therefore we have used much more time than planned on developing different hardware platforms and testing them out in diverse use situations. Here are some of the decisions we have made during the project based on our research and explorations:
– Communication protocol for musical events OSC (Open Sound Control), not MIDI.
– Mobile computer platform iPod Touch (OSX), or Android.
– SuperCollider, not PureData or Max/MSP.
– Wireless communication by Wifi not Bluetooth or Zigbee.
– 5 Volt usb connectors for all devices not multiple voltages and custom battery connectors.
– Processing as dynamic graphic generation not Jitter or other programs.
– Textile embedded surface mounted LEDs not LEDs with legs on the surface.
– Ribbon cable not Conductive thread.
– Embedded projector into the interactive thing, not wall projection.
– Embedded speakers and Subwofer, not external ones.

Video of the 3rd Generation student projects are online!

Birgitta — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 01:12:30 +0000

Here are videoes of the student projects from the Sensorial and Musical Interaction course at AHO 2012. Stian Ruud recorded video during the exhibition 2. November and edited short video clips to put on Vimeo. All the Musicking Tangibles are wireless and run by iPodTouch and RHYMEs breakout card kDevice, which uses Bluetooth. The Tangibles use various sensors like pressure touch, RFID, microphone and accelerometers to play and vary the music. All music programming is done in SuperCollider. All installations has LEDs included in the textile that vary with the interaction and music. The Stump Drum also has vibrators as output in its arms. Watch the video clips here below. You can find more information of the project by clicking on the project names.

Whispering Willow

Students create new Musicking Tangibles concepts

Birgitta — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:22:52 +0000

The second week of the course Sensorial and Musical interaction the students assignment was to develop new concepts of Musicking Tangibles. The Musicking Tangibles had to be wireless, interactive things, that motivated the whole family to music together in their home. The concepts should build on RHYME’s last developed hardware platform kDevice. kDevice is a Bluetooth based extention card to smartphone/ iPod Touch to add additional sensors and actuators like LEDs. The interactive music is written in SuperCollider, which runs on the smartphone. The six groups presented 3 new concepts each and a working technical sketch. The last week the students will develop one concept for the final presentation 2. November.

RHYMEs Sensorial and Musical Interaction course started

Birgitta — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 13:07:54 +0000

The master course Sensorial and Musical Interaction course, which is run by RHYME’s development team (Birgitta, Fredrik and Anders-Petter) and related to RHYME, started at AHO 8th October. The course started with an excursion to StatsPed/Torshov Kompetansesenters large exhibition and introduction by Turid Horgen, who is a national authority on multi-disability and sensory stimulation. The goal was to get an introduction to the field and a hands-on experience of Multi-Sensory Environments. The first week the student assignment was to develop sensorial sensors. The focus was to explore the material possibilities when embedding sensors into diverse materials, creating shapes, surfaces and structures to motivate musical interaction for diverse users. The end presentation will be at AHO, 2. November at 13.00. Welcome!

RHYME at ArcInTex

Birgitta — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 09:19:37 +0000

RHYME member Birgitta Cappelen has been invited to be a member in the ArcInTex network initiated by the Swedish School of Textiles at the University of Borås. The first workshop will take place in Borås 24-25 September 2012. ArcInTex is a future arena for people and institutions working in the field of smart textiles (e-textile) and environments from the field of Architecture, Interaction design and Textile Art and design.