Lab 3: Final Project

For the final project I decided to work on a prototype for my “Developing Assistive Technologies” class, I have been very interested in using technology and design in order to improve the living conditions of people with disabilities and this was a good project to prototype some of these solutions.

The project consists on a new element that will be placed in the Oral Clinic for people with disabilities in the NYU Dentistry College, they have a multi-sensory room which main goal is to provide different stimuli for people with different disabilities who come to the oral center and they are feeling nervous about the procedures that are about to receive.

The proposal for this room is to have something that is more targeted for the tactile sense, I wanted to use a stress ball as a base, which already contains an interesting interface since it’s filled with bubbles and as the user squeezes the ball, some elements in the room are going to change, for example the luminosity in some of their light interfaces and also some of the graphics that are displayed on the projections could be changed according to how much the user squeeze the ball.

For this prototype I started by finding a pattern for the sphere and how to cover it in fabric, I used some template that I found online and followed it first with felt so that I could practice and make sure that the dimensions were correct.

The next step was to produce the same cover but this time with resistive fabric in order to generate the equivalent of a pressure sensor. I had to sew a small circle with conductive fabric in order to be able to collect the values in each side of the sphere and connect it to the alligator wires in order to send the values to Arduino.

As a final step I added an LED ring in order to use it as my variable interface, and map the values that I was receiving from the resistive fabric and convert those values into brightness. I had to use the smooth functionality in order to have a more stable light and brightness value in the mapping which allowed me to brighten the LED ring when the pressure is higher and decrease the brightness when the pressure is lower.

The final result is a stress ball interface that changes the luminosity of the lights according to the way that the user is squeezing the stress ball.

Lab 2: Creating 3 different buttons

Button 1

For the first button, I decided to create a bridge with a larger material on one side that will close the circuit when the circle was closed. I created a small circle inside with conductive fabric and then ironed it in the inside of a ring that didn’t touch the inside one.

Button 2

For the second button I decided to do a push button with a conductive fabric in both sides and two leather rings in the inside that would require the user to push a little bit harder in order to close the circuit and turn on the light, as a last step I aded a heart to the front part so that it would indicate the exact place to press.

Third Button

For the third and last button I used another material as conductor, I created a headband and used conductive thread to connect it to the alligator clips so that the light would turn on one the headband was closed with the clip.

Lab 1: Creating a circuit

For the first lab we were asked to create a circuit using conductive thread, felt, a battery and an LED. I started by creating a drawing with a pen in order to mark the path for the thread to be, I used a simple stitch in order to make the path and reach the far end of the felt.

I decided to keep the battery holder in order for the lab to be easier to complete and I used a blue LED with the twisted legs so that I could sew it to the corner of the felt. Once the positive side of the battery was connected to the long leg of the LED and the negative side of the battery was connected to the short leg of the LED I was able to close the circuit and light up the LED.

Building a textile circuit

Building a textile circuit