This project evolves with the connection between three dimensional fabric and the two dimensional form to read it.
As a knitting instructor, I wanted to develop needles that can sense the fabric you create while you do it and see the technical drawing of it on the computer screen. In these difficult times and as for the visual people we are, this could be an excellent way to develop our learning methodos.
When crafts meet technology.
The needles - I started at my dad’s workshop to create my conductive knitting needles. I use an iron bar number ten and cut it at the same length as the normal needles.
I wanted the shape of the needles to be a little bit different, usually the edge is smooth so you wouldn't get cutted, but I wanted it to be more sharp, kind of like a pencil. I used a polishing machine to create this shape and also to smoother the edge from the other side.
The final result:
First knitting attempt:
I created a survey and gave it to student and instructors, their responses helped me to understand what they would want from this smart needles to do and how can I create my design more accurate.
Once my needles were ready I connected them to the arduino and created a circuit to check if it's working. Because I have two types of stitches, one of them connected to the needle in the front and one in the back
I had to check the serial monitor to see if the values are changing when I touch the wires
In the p5 sketch, I created another type of stitch since I had only one, breaking down the beziers and the curve to be the opposite and spread organically in the grid was not easy. Instead of the mouseClicked function I changed it to leftStitch and I added one more which is my new shape to be the rightStitch.
function leftStitch() {
var printCount = 1;
for (var j = clickCount * printCount; j < (clickCount + 1) * printCount; j++) {
shape = shapes[j]
stroke('red');
song1.play()
translate(shape.x, shape.y);
bezier(...shape.bezier3);
bezier(...shape.bezier4);
curve(...shape.curve2);
pop()
}
clickCount++;
}The main function that controls the communication between the Arduino and the p5 is the serialEvent. I added a true/false loop for each stitch and a variable to define what is the current and the previous position:
function serialEvent() { //informtion coming in - triger
var inString = serial.readStringUntil('\r\n');
// console.log(inString);
if (inString.length > 0) {
var sensors = split(inString, ',');
console.log(sensors);
if (sensors.length > 1) {
current = sensors[0];
if (previous != current) {
if (sensors[0] == 0) {
leftStitch();
}
}First attempt to see how it works:
I wanted to add sound to each stitch, in the surveys the students wrote that they don't want to hear sound because it might be too confusing for them. Since I knit with glasses but I don't use glasses for the computer I thought that sound can be a chosen option for accessibility. People can decide on their own whether they want the stitches to have sound or not.
The designing part was my favorite, I wanted to paint the needles with black color. Since the spray color is not conductive, I calculated the size of the wire and attached a tape with that size in the spots where the wires were supposed to be.
I used polystyrene to create a small box to be the edge of the needle and I printed out in a tape printer my logo.
The ‘save’ button function in the sketch will appear once you start your first stitch, it gives the option to save the technical drawing as an image. Potential scenario that can happen using these needles when learning knitting: