This week got devoured by meetings, so I don’t have a huge project update.  I had a good meeting with Meg Mitchell in which we discussed my direction and plans for my upcoming qualifier show.  She responded particularly well to this piece:

The intention of this piece is to use the copper taffeta applique on the pants as a capacitive sensor with enough range to make a textile proximity sensor.  When the sensor is activated, the 3D printed spines would lift via muscle wires.

We discussed some additional applications for this sensing technique and I’ve been sketching ideas.  The plan for this week, now that my supplies have arrived, is to test the capacitive sensing (since the pants are already sewn).  If I can get that working, I might change up my final show garment plans to all use a similar sensing technology.  This would allow me to focus on design completion and responses, rather losing too much time this semester to testing technology.

I have a meeting scheduled on Wednesday with Natalie Rudolph, a professor in the Mechanical Engineering department who works on the 3D printing team.  We’re going to discuss their work and what some possible avenues of collaboration may be.  More to come!