In this assignment, you’ll learn some of the basics of sewing and will connect up some sewable electronics.

Learning objectives

The goal of this assignment is to learn about sewing and sewable electronics. You’ll make a prototype that responds to your body or the environment.

Deliverables

  1. A primarily soft material-based object or piece of clothing that incorporates electronic sensing and output (see below instructions for more detail).
  2. A video, with your full name written on a piece of paper visible in the beginning of the video, of your working project, demonstrating its input and output capabilities.
  3. A schematic of your circuit with the parts clearly labeled.
  4. Photo or photos of your working circuit incorporated in your material with the parts clearly labeled.
  5. The code you used in your circuit.
  6. A textual description (in a Slack Post) of your project and how it works, as well as a list of resources you used in formulating your solution.

Learning

What to do

The goal of this assignment is to use your accumulated knowledge to make a soft-material object or piece of clothing that incorporates electronic input and output. What does “soft material” mean here? It means something made of fabric or other soft, flexible material. This could include clothing, hats, ties, sofa cushions, stuffed animals, pillows, purses, and so on. Note: your soft-material object should be something that has some purpose, which is to say it should not just be a piece of fabric with electronics stuck to it.

One really good way to do this project is to use conductive thread. We have a lot of conductive thread in the lab. You can use it in conjunction with sewable electronics, which you can find in the cage (see the parts list). You might want to use other components, too, and that’s great!

Your project needs to incorporate at least one input and at least one output. Both should make some kind of sense for the object you’re using and be incorporated in a reasonable way; in other words, if you hot-glue a button and an LED to the head of a teddy bear, you’re going to get a bad grade.

Turning in

You’ll show your final output object in class on the due date. You should turn in your photographs and files via direct message to me in Slack by 1:59 pm on the due date.

Your video file should clearly illustrate your circuit working. Get a friend to hold your phone or put it on a tripod so you can use both hands to demonstrate. You should write your full name on a piece of paper and have that at least at the beginning of the video.

For this assignment, you need to turn in a schematic of your circuit. You can hand-draw this, use something like TinkerCAD Circuits, or a program like Fritzing. Just make sure that the parts are clear. Please read the tutorial above about schematics.

Turn in photos of your project with the parts labeled.

Turn in your code that you used for your project.

Finally, compose a Slack Post with details about how your project works. Also include a list of resources you used: major places you found help, examples, and so forth.

Please name your files sewing-<yourname>.<ext>, replacing <yourname> with your name and <ext> with your file extension. For example, sewing-dan.jpg. If you have more than one file of a type, please add a number, as in sewing-dan01.jpg.

Grading

See the syllabus for how much this assignment contributes to your final grade. The grade for this assignment is determined as follows:

  • Project is primarily soft material (10%)
  • Project incorporates, in a reasonable way,
    • at least one input and (25%)
    • at least one output (25%)
  • Circuit works (10%)
  • Video is clear and includes your name (5%)
  • Schematic is clear and describes circuit (10%)
  • Photos are clear and labeled (5%)
  • Documentation is clear and describes circuit (10%)