This past weekend I drove to Kent State in order to attend the TechStyle Symposium and the Fashion/Tech Hackathon. 

The symposium, held on Friday, was a gathering of apparel professors and graduate students from schools around the world, including Kent State, Iowa State, Loughborough University and others.  The talks in general revolved around various applications of technology in the apparel field.  They touched on topics such as 3D garment simulation, laser cutting, digital fabric printing and building technology into garments in order to assist disabled children.  In addition to the talks, there was a brief poster session featuring presentations from Iowa State graduate students.  Overall, the symposium was interesting and an excellent networking opportunity.

The Hackathon was a much different event, although equally interesting.  Over 150 students (undergrads and grads) from across the country were brought together and tasked with creating some sort of wearable technology prototype in 36 hours.  Assorted supplies were provided by the organizers (Arduinos, LEDs, Intel Edisons, Myo armbands, Oculus Rifts, etc.) for the hackers to use.  We also had access to the Kent State TextileLab facilities, included a 3D body scanner, 3D printers, a laser cut and digital fabric printers.  Teams could either be formed beforehand or at the event.

Although I had been told in advance that graduate students were welcome, there seemed to be very few actually attending the event.  That made trying to find a team a little awkward.  In the end, I decided to just work by myself.  That did mean that without any additional tech help I scaled back some of my experimentation and chose a project I knew I could complete within the alloted time.

The final outcome is what I called the LightPrint Dress (a terrible name, I know; in my defense I had only had 3 hours of sleep).

I rendered the neckpiece which I printed on a Makerbot Replicator 2, then embedded it with UV LEDs harvested from several small UV flashlights.  I designed the fabric and had it printed at the Kent State facilities.  I then hand-stencilled UV reactive liquid (aka Tide) onto sections of the pattern before draping the dress.  The intended outcome was that the UV lights would activate the reactive portions of the pattern, thereby changing the appearance of the textile in an interactive way.  Unfortunately, due to time and material limitations the final effect was not what I had hoped.

The project as a whole, however, was well-received by the judges.  I was awarded the prize for “Most Technically Challenging Hack” by one of the event sponsors.  The judges seemed most impressed by the fact that I had completed all aspects of the project by myself, thus showing a broad range of skills.  The prize was a Moto360 Smartwatch, which I am still trying to figure out how to use, lol.

While the project was not hugely challenging by my personal criteria, it is a good proof of concept that I would like to pursue further.  A future iteration I would like to explore is one where all of the electronics are fully integrated/encased in the neckpiece with a recharging port and wireless connection to some sort of app to enable user programming.  Rather than using UV LEDs, I would like to install high-powered RGB LEDs and use white fabric for the actual garment.  Theoretically, this would allow me to create user-controlled, color change garments.

Overall, the entire event was an excellent experience.  I would definitely participate in another fashion hack in the future.