Week 0: Principles and Practices

 Jan 30, 2021   

Summary

  • This week's assignments

    • Read the Fab Charter    ✔
    • Sketch your final project idea/s    ✔
    • Describe what it will do and who will use it    ✔

  • Resources Used

  • Skills Gained

    • Communicate an initial project proposal

Brainstorming

After screening my various ideas, I decided to pursue a final project that relates to fashion and health, and the inspiration behind my project was the aesthetic and medical purposes of corsets. In the past, women wore corsets under their dresses to help train the waist and assist the posture. However, for us, wearing a corset under clothes is not very convenient because our clothes are not as structured, especially during warmer days.

I would love to create something modern with similar functions to those of the corsets, but I doubt I would be able to achieve the two functions within the timeframe, in order of importance, I would like to work on the posture assistive function during the six months of the course, so my proposed final project is about an interactive dress that uses haptic feedback for posture guidance.

I did some research to learn what models already exist and I found that a fashion tech company called Wearable X has developed smart yoga pants to help monitor the right posture of the user during yoga practice. The device is very high-end and aids the user in every move to avoid chronic pain or long-term damages. This project inspires me to work on flexible PCBs!

Credit: Wearable X

Concept Development

Introduction

Giada (the final project's name) is an interactive dress that responds to the poor posture of the user and cues her through vibration alerts.

Giada is a feminine Italian given name meaning "jade". In Chinese culture, "jade" is a symbol of renewal and longevity, which resonates my project aim. The name "Giada" also reminds me of nature - every time I am in nature, I feel refreshed, and I am hoping the same for this project!

My Sketches

I want the dress to be versatile and super comfortable! After a few design iterations (Image 1), I learned that a simple A-line dress (Image 2) with princess-seamed bodice would best suit my desire since this style flatters any body shape and works from work to weekend. Less is more! 😄

Image 1: Dress design iterations

Image 2: Dress silhouette of my final project (created using Adobe Illustrator)

The outer layer of the dress will be the "lace" or "eyelet" fabric, and I plan to achieve this through textiles laser cutting.

Inspirations for the lace pattern design (source: Pinterest)

The dress will be fully lined and with a side zipper because I want to make sure the electronics can be stored and distributed in the center back lining so that they are not seen from the outside but still align with the spine for better accuracy.

How the circuit works

During this Saturday's Global Open Time, Pablo from FabLab Leon and Henk from FabLab Amsterdam - Waag pointed to me great resources such as Victoria's Posturea project and Textile Academy's flex PCB projects. Doing the search on Fab Academy Archive, I found a few more sites that would be beneficial to my project, and I will want to refer to them as well.

Skills Required

To fit with the scope of Fab Academy, I started to brainstorm the possible processes by creating a mind map using Xinhui's method.

Brainstorming with WiseMapping

Currently, the processes that I would like to include to my project are as follows:

  • 2D and 3D design:
    • Flat pattern drafting
    • Computational clothing simulation (virtual garment fitting)
    • Decorations design (possible tools: Adobe Illustrator, SOLIDWORKS, Blender, Meshmixer)
  • Additive and subtractive fabrication processes:
    • 3D printing some dress decorations
    • Laser cutting pattern pieces and some dress decorations on textiles
  • Electronics design and production:
    • Flexible PCB design and production
  • Embedded microcontroller interfacing and programming:
    • Input devices: accelerometer, gyroscope (maybe stretch sensor also?)
    • Output devices: vibration motor
    • Conductive thread and conductive fabrics
    • Bluetooth application making using MIT App Inventor
  • System integration and packaging:
    • Packaging design with SOLIDWORKS
    • Laser cutting packaging in cardboard or cardstock

I look forward to working on this project with the skills I will be learning from the Fab Academy course, I hope I can make this dress a reality 😊!

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