E-Textile Playground¶
| Path | Target | Duration | Skills |
|---|---|---|---|
| PathX | 18-25 | 2days | Electronics, soldering, sewing |
Introduction and context¶
In a two-day workshop, textile students have the opportunity to get acquainted with the field of e-textiles and use the TPL prototyping toolkit to create their own e-textiles. As the time is not long enough to realize functional systems, additional coaching sessions throughout the semester take place.
Preparation and materials¶
TEAM ROLES - 3 TPL staff as organizers and workshop lead - Shemakes ambassador as co-organizer and co-lead - Professor (coordination with university)
PREPs - Clarify with professors to make workshop part of regular textile curriculums - Coordinate with ambassador - Assemble prototyping modules - Ask students to prepare info slide on themselves and their e-textile experience
Preparation and materials¶
Equipment, Tools and Materials
- Soldering station
- TPL proptyping toolkit
- Cables
- Textiles
- Hotplate to melt adhesives and for soldering
- 3D printer and filament for housing
- Conductive yarns and textiles
- Other textile and electronic equipment
AGENDA time of activity¶
Equipment, Tools and Materials
- Introduction into e-textiles, application scenarios and specific requirements.
- Introduction into circuits and electricity, and into the toolkit modules and their funtionalities.
- Ideation round to let the students come up with ideas they want to realize.
- Group students into small teams of 2-3 people according to ideas. Make first mock-ups of parts of the systems they want to create to let them get a feel for the modules and what you can do with them.
- Each group gives a short presentation about their idea and where they are after one day of workshopping.
- Feedback is given by the workshop leaders and the other teams. The ideas are revised and afterwards, the prototyping continues.
- At the end of the second day, all teams give another short presentation of their project and progress.
Tips to facilitate the activity in context (to-do / not do)¶
- Group students together according to interests (without experience it is difficult to work alone)
- Don’t be discouraged if not everything works on the first try.
- Don’t have to many persons in one workshop
- We spent more time on the initial introduction into e-textiles than we planned, but it was very good for the students.
- So don’t be stressed if plans shift or change during the event.
- Do let the students try around with different functionalities and don’t do everything yourself.
TIPS AND TRICKS ?¶
- Have working samples ready to show the students what the technology can do.
- Give the students time to get used to the new technology and try to explain things as easy as possible (“tell it so that a toddler could understand it”)
Photos¶
Presentation¶
Licence and credits¶
Attribution — ShareAlike CC BY-SA This activity has been designed by Sigrid Rotzler and Kamil Garbacz with the help of their ambassador: Tasneem Hussain for shemakes.eu. It is based on TPL's prototyping toolkit
Related and supporting activities/modules
It can be combined with the other topics of Topic/skills,