Sensors

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.

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 ).

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.

New 3rd Generation solutions under development

Birgitta — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 19:00:28 +0000

During July and August the RHYME development team (Fredrik, Anders-Petter and Birgitta) is working intensively to develop new solutions for light, sensory stimulation, interaction, battery, projection and mobile musical communication based on smart phones. Wireless communication and devices have large limitations compared to wired solutions, that we developed in Generation 2 with the Wave Carpet. Smart phones and their intended use also represent great challenges for our tangible musical concepts regarding communication between devices, embedding, joint battery solutions and system control.
Below are some of the many material, colour, surface and sensory explorations.

Further we are working on the mobile hardware platform to offer all tangible interaction forms we like to include, based on smart phone technology. First we are rebuilding our iDevice breakout card to offer a joint battery solution and other interaction forms than we had in the first version. (We used the first iDevice card in Wave Orange and in all student projects fall 2011.) Up to now we have developed 4 different mobile plattforms that we call iDevice 1.0, iDevice 1.1, iDevice 1.5, jDevice and kDevice.
Further we are exploring and testing other platforms on the market, where there are many. But designing social, empowering, tangible, musical interaction (musicking) are very demanding on many levels, so we struggle with many limitations. We are also exploring alternative projection solutions that are more suitable in a home.

Started testing 2nd Generation – WAVE

Birgitta — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 12:50:43 +0000

On Friday March 2nd we started the action based empirical study of the 2nd generation of RHYME co-creative tangibles, Wave. The empirical study which we carried out at Haug School and Resource center continued the whole of March 2012, according to the RHYME project plan. Below you will find some examples of different interaction forms the Wave carpet offers. We do not publish pictures of the children participating in the study of ethical reasons.

RHYME at Ambience 2011

Birgitta — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:20:54 +0000

Birgitta Cappelen and Anders-Petter Andersson presented their paper “Designing Smart Textile for Music and Health” at the Ambience11 conference in Borås the 28. November 2011. “The Ambience conference focuses on the intersections and interfaces between technology, art and design. The first international conference in the Ambience series was held in Tampere, Finland in 2005. In Tampere 2005 the basic theme was “Intelligent ambience, including intelligent textiles, smart garments, intelligent home and living environment”.

The paper presents the exploratory and reseach-by-design work related to the smart textile development in 2nd generation of RHYME prototypes, what we call Wave.

3 new hardware plattforms

Birgitta — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 09:55:05 +0000

During the summer (2011) we have explored, developed and tested several hardware possibilities for future RHYME prototypes. We have now decided on 3 hardware platforms to develop further.
The first and easiest one is based on iPhone/iPod and our own custom designed “breakout board”, which we have chosen to call RHYME iDevice 1.0. We have already developed several sketches and prototypes on the iDevice platform. The iDevice board will also be used in the “Music interaction and e-textile” course this autumn, that we run together with the Textile department at the Oslo National Academy of Art (KhiO).

The second platform we call RHYME Wireless. It is based on an Android Smartphone and Arduino ADK. ADK is short for Android Open Accessory Development Kit, and is Google’s I/O platform for connecting new hardware devices to Android phones. RHYME Wireless can run with or without the RHYME Master, and this decide the possibilities for interaction and collaboration with other devices on the Internet.

The third platform we call RHYME Wired which is wired to the power network. This opens up for exploring more power depending sensory possibilities in sound, tactile stimulation and visuals.

New sensors, shapes, textures and interaction forms

Birgitta — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 02:50:51 +0000

In parallel with the development of new hardware platforms, new input devices are being designed and developed. And therefore new shapes and textures are being designed and new forms of musical interaction explored.

Development and structure of textile touch sensor field:

Shape and texture design and explorations:

Camera and Projector embedding and testing:

New hardware under development

Birgitta — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 16:09:29 +0000

After the test period this spring we have gathered many wishes of what we would like to develop and try out in next generations of prototypes. Since ORFI was developed in 2007 a lot has happened on the smart phone, tablet and on other relevant technical hardware platforms. These platforms have to be evaluated to decide what should be the basis for the next generation of RHYME’s co-creative tangibles. During July and August this development is taking place. Anders-Petter Anderson, Fredrik Olofsson and Birgitta Cappelen started July with a workshop to create sketches for new sensors, interaction forms and hardware platforms.

Two versions of iPhone/iPod Breakout, Arduino Mega and Android Breakout card IOIO are being tested and developed further for our purposes and future evaluation.

New textile touch devices are being developed further for tactile musical interaction.

New input sensors and different output devices are being tested, developed and evaluated.

The goal is to decide on future system architecture, hardware plattform(s) and suitable input and output devices to include in next generation(s) of prototypes.

New tangible textile sensors under development

Birgitta — Sun, 15 May 2011 22:24:11 +0000

The two first weeks of May Birgitta Cappelen and Anders-Petter Andersson have been working on developing new tactile textile sensors for the new generation of prototypes at the Textile Department at Khio in Oslo. The challenge is to develop a tactile soft sensor which is easy and attractive to activate and gives multi coloured light output. Many textile techniques have been explored, like screen print, layering, lamination and chemical based burning out of fibers. We still haven’t found the right way to do it, some more ways have still to be explored.