Building on the last workshop: Designing Hybrid Wearables, Mediamatic organizes an advanced wearable course from Apr. 15 to 18 in Oosterdokskade 5, Amsterdam: Wearables Master Class – Design the symbiosis of digital components and clothing

Trainers, lecturers & assistants for this workshop: Leah Buechley, Maurin Donneaud, Vincent Roudaut, Anouk Wipprecht and Dirk van Oosterbosch.

This highly creative team is not just talking about pimping clothing – they are investigating the electronic extrapolation of the role of clothing and fashion.

Integrating advanced technology into clothing that gives added value, that extends the function of clothing.

One of those advanced technologies is without question Leah Buechley‘s e-textile construction kit LilyPad Arduino which will be at the center of the action. Besides the LilyPad there will be Bluetooth- and regular Arduino’s available as workshop material as well as a collection of sensors and actuators.

The workshop is designed for a maximum of 16 computer scientists, fashion designers, hardware hackers, fabric experts, product developers or media-makers.

As this is a Master Class only people with experience and/or a very thorough understanding of electronics and relevant experience with design processes will be accepted. When you are not sure about your qualification you can contact the organizer on mediamatic.net

To get tuned into the Master Class Workshop have a look at the creativity of the last one: Designing Hybrid Wearables which was co-organized by Dana Gordon interaction designer and artist and Jean-Baptiste Labrune PhD student in interaction design in INRIA and University Paris Sud in France.

The flickr stream from Jean-Baptiste shows the creative fun the group had during the Workshop.

The workshop presentation Jean-Baptiste send us (a big Thank You) contains the creative process and the projects that have been build during the Designing Hybrid Wearables workshop. Click the button below to download the presentation (pdf format).

[Download not found]

Keep it simple yet effective is the tag-line of the DIY project ‘Soft-circuit LED Bracelet‘ available for inspiration and do-it-yourself production by Instructables.com

The creator of the instructable, REACTIVEFashion, shows a quick and easy way how to make a sparkling fabric bracelet without the need of a solder iron.

The bracelet is build in a similar to the one we have seen from Leah Buechley. The difference is a simpler design to show how easy it can be to sew a circuit, connect power and some LEDs.

The switch is realized either via conductive Velcro or via snap buttons. Close the bracelet on your wrist and it starts it’s sparkle.

Each step is explained with text and images on how to sew the circuit and attach the other elements. The instruction includes a complete list of the required materials and where you can get them.

About the creator of this DIY instruction: REACTIVEfashion is a cross-disciplinary collaborative project created by Angela Sheehan and Rebecca Grabman at Bennington College.

Those two creative ladies have more fabulous Wearable Electronic concepts on their Website, demonstrating the combination of physical computing and costume design.

The REACTIVEfashion concepts are a series of wearable computing art projects exploring the intersection of technology, clothing and performance.

My favorite is the Formalwear concept, costumes that interact with each other as they performer themselves interact. Another interesting concept is the Motorized Dress which is in terms of functionality along the lines of Hussein Chalayan’s transformer dresses.

Check out the complete list of projects from Angela Sheehan and Rebecca Grabman on their Website.

I found a cute, simple electronic sewing kit offered by aniomagic.com that can make the perfect Christmas gift for the creative people among our reader.

You might not be able to create with this kit such attention magnets like Moritz Waldermeyer did recently but you can create cute little Wearable Electronic fashion accessories for your bag or shirt or jacket.

The site has some examples to demonstrate how the electrical sewing kit can be used and offers a detailed description with many photos to show how to work with the different components of the electronic sewing kit.

No worry, it’s much easier as you might think thanks to the simplicity of this kit.

The electronic sewing kit contains: two hand-made “LED sequins”, a fabric switch, soft battery holder and battery, conductive thread and a patch of fabric.

The complete kit can be ordered here and goes for $ 15.- and shipping is free!

Nwanua Elumeze, CEO and researcher on customizable clothing and jewelry is behind this fabulous simple but very inspiring concept of the the electronic sewing kit™.

You do not need any solder iron or other electronic tools just a needle, scissor and your imagination. It’s a needlework project with a touch of technology.

Impress your family or friends with this unique Christmas gift or make your own creation as a very unique, creative and personal gift.

In either way, a cute and creative Christmas surprise.

Another funstastic weekend is ahead of us so I thought to bring up something for the fun and creative side of you.

A DIY project seems to fit this requirements well and if a DIY project is somehow related to Wearable Electronic, we are hooked.

Caleb John Clark, a men who likes to document, distill and disseminate humanizing media in the area of instructional design (that are his words on his blog), created an Solar powered Bicycle Helmet with safety lights integrated.

You can find the complete instructions on Instructables, THE site to look for amazing DIY projects.

The Solar powered Bicycle Helmet uses a flexible solar panel, similar but smaller to the one we used for our DIY Solar Bag. The solar energy captured by the solar panel charges batteries which in turn give the power to LED lamps that make you more visible when you cycle on the dangerous streets at night.

The instruction is fairly simple to follow, no need to make a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) or getting any electronic components other than the solar panel with battery holder, some LED with holder and a switch.

Here is a link to a short video, demonstrating the helmet’s light in action.

This might be the right job for the weekend if you are a cyclist who wants to make an occasional ride after sunset. No problem with the Solar powered Helmet that has stored the suns light for your safety.

I have to lift my hat, so to speak, to wu-lee for the creation of the LED Hat. This concept of Wearable Electronic might not fall into the latest fashion trend but I do admire the creativity that motivated wu-lee to make this demonstrator.

You can find on this Site more details how wu-lee designed and created the LED Hat. It uses a mesh that carries 1024 LED!

That’s a lot of wiring and soldering. The construction notes are a very interesting and a inspirational read.

The great thing about this concept is that anything can be displayed on the matrix of 16 (vertical) and 64 (horizontal around the hat) pixels.

Images, icons, text, anything can be visualized in animated form to express yourself, light up your party or simple use your hat to advertise. Now that’s what I call ‘working with the hat head.

The integration looks very neat and clean and the animation that can be seen in the demo video give a very powerful idea of the potential that is inside this Hat concept.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoVUtz01Uww[/video]

wu-lee‘s construction notes might also serve as inspiration for students, DIY fans or even a mighty big company to come up with better, useful, practical and most of all more fashionable products that light up to positively influence our mood by changing the color of our clothing, bags and yeah – even hats.

Light, especially animated light displays that react to certain situations have always had a fascination and having the possibility to change our outfit (the color of it) in line of our emotions is one of the wishes of fashion designers as well as for consumer.

May the light come over out of our clothing soon.

Our reader tamberg pointed us to the ‘digg me’ Shirt, a very well documented Wearable Electronic Instructables project and just the right stuff to write about at the end of the week when we switch to an more relaxed mode.

The ‘digg me’ Shirt is a truly Wearable Electronic DIY project combining the usage and creativity of e-textiles, clothing and electronic elements.

Besides many tips and tricks you will see on how to create your own DIY ‘digg-me’ shirt you will find a concept for making your own e-textile switch, very interesting and it looks that this switch works perfectly.

The ‘digg-me’ shirt comes from Instructables member thydzik who has created an excellent instruction down to the smallest details on how everyone can/could create his/her own digg-me Shirt.

A couple of YouTube hosted videos will help you to make your own shirt. The video below shows how the ‘digg-me’ Shirt works:
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXfmLl_81Bs[/video]
Wearing this T-Shirt shows everyone around how popular you are – like on the Internet with the digg-it badge on your Blog.

It has never been easier to have double fun: first by building the digg-me shirt and then be wearing it and collecting your diggs.

Just in case so you know: ‘digg it’ from digg.com is a place for people to classify content from anywhere on the web. In certain circles a high digg number means importance, relevance, popularity. Collecting many diggs on your shirt will attach those attributes to your Web2.0 citizenship.

I told you at the begin: the weekend is just around the corner, so why not have a bit of fun.

Leah Buechley created in cooperation with Sparkfun the next generation of e-textile modules for the Wearable Electronic DIY enthusiasts: the LilyPad-Arduino set.

To introduce Leah Buechely might not be needed for our regular readers and everyone interested into Wearable Electronics just so much, Leah is a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at the University of Colorado and a member of the Craft Technology Group. Her research interests in electronic textiles, wearable computing and human computer interaction paved her way to create the now famous LED tank top.

Since then, Leah continuously developed further her tool kit for e-textiles which resulted in the latest and most sophisticated DIY kit for e-textiles I have ever seen before, the LilyPad.

The LilyPad is designed with large connecting pads, to create an interface between small electronic components and textiles, to be sewn into clothing. Various input, output, power, and sensor LilyPads are available.

Sparkfun started in 2002 from a group of students looking for affordable, high quality PCB making services for their projects. They couldn’t find anything satisfactory in the market and decided to start their own online store for like minded people: designer, students, hobbyists and DYI enthusiasts.

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments. The Arduino boards can be assembled by hand or purchased pre-assembled; the software can be downloaded for free.

Ok – after this short but, as I think needed, introduction of all elements involved in the LilyPad-Arduino creation, we can have a look for what this e-textile kit can be used for or better, I refer you to Leah’s high quality and easy to follow DIY instruction on her Website.

Leah’s DIY demonstration model is a shirt, using different modules of the LilyPad-Arduino set, that has a RGB LED mounted on the front of the shirt, the power supply is mounted near the right hip and the accelerometer is sewn to the right wrist. The RGB LED changes color in response to the motion and tilt of the wrist.

Leah is giving on her Website, as usual, very detailed instructions on what materials are need with links to at least one source where to get them. She has the software of the Accelerometer/LED shirt ready for download as well to get you up and running in no time.

What you need to start creating your own Wearable Electronic fashion item is at least the following modules: mainboard, power supply and the USB->serial board to download the software to the LilyPad mainboard from your computer. Those three modules cost together $ 55.85 The cost for a sensor is related to the function of the sensor with the top price of $ 24.95 for the Accelerometer and $ 7.95 for Tri-Color(RGB) LED, Buzzer or Light sensor.

As of the time of this writing (Oct. 10), most of the LilyPad components are sold out by Sparkfun but there is the option of Auto Notify, so as soon as the LilyPad modules go online, I will get an email to rush over and order my set

Great news for all Wearable Electronic DIY enthusiasts, Students and their Professors and Fashion Designer.

Eleksen offers now next to the Evaluation Kit the ElekTex keypads and the electronics module for iPod control.

This is music in our ears. Finally, everyone interested in experiencing the often mentioned fabric keyboard can now use them to realize own design ideas.

Fashion students will be able to visualize the actual functionality of their Wearable Electronic creations to make fully functional samples but also to find out how to use and utilize the potential of the ElekTex sensor technology.

Two types of sensors are available to choose from: the first type has 5 buttons with a shorter textile cable ribbon and the second type offers more flexibility by being able to define up to 6 buttons together with variable button size and scroll control. The scroll control can be over the top of conventional press button area.

Together with an electronics module, these sensors are designed to be easy to integrate into wearable accessories, garments and bags. They can be placed in a variety of positions in all type of clothing or bags.

The sensors cost $12.- and $15.- each and the electronics module $30.-. Check out more details of the sensor and electronics module in Eleksen’s online store.

Hotspot Bloom is a wearable flower that glows and changes color to indicate the signal strength of a nearby wireless network. The Hotspot Bloom allows you to detect WiFi hotspots around you in an eye catching way.

Karen Lee, a media artist investigating the convergence of wearable computing and wireless technologies, created the Hotspot Bloom during her thesis work for her graduation from Parsons School of Design.

This was back in 2004. I have done a lot of searching the last few days but could not find any newer information about the Hotspot Bloom – many of the referral links are broken. No details on how this could be build (if there were any at that time) except that a full-color-spectrum LED controlled by PIC (microcontroller) monitors the location for wireless access points.

The Hotspot Bloom will glow in relation to the strength of a WiFi signal nearby, for example red for full strength going over green to orange for a medium signal and blue for a low signal.

The Hotspot Bloom is a brilliant idea that would deserve to be elevated to product level. In a time where everyone is always or wants to be always online, this idea from Karen Lee is just the cute accessory we have been waiting for.

It would be a great to pull off a DIY project for a Wearable WiFi detector. Unfortunately, we from talk2myShirt are not knowledgeable enough in electronics to build a WiFi signal ‘sniffer’ circuit that can be build as Wearable Electronic component.

Maybe you our dear reader know how to build such a circuit and you can share it with us or you can point us to Karen Lee to check if she followed up on her fabulous idea of the Hotspot Bloom. We appreciate any lead or tip in our comments on how to make this work.

We have seen the LED-Dress from Hussein Cahalayan but the $ 16.000,- might be a bit too much for some of us.

Do not fret, I can show you a way to have a similar ‘head turning’ outfit for your next summer-night party for just $ 70-80 with a bit of DIY and the fabulous instruction from Laura Cesari posted on the Craftzine Blog.

Laura, an artist and designer, demonstrated the creation of the Fire Skirt during the Maker Fair last May and made her instruction now available on Instructables.com

The dress is based on an A-line skirt pattern; a cone-shaped skirt that bunches with gravity and creates organic-looking folds. It has 2 layers: a shiny satin layer underneath, and a translucent chiffon layer on top.

The shiny satin layer is adorned with decorative flames shaped in electroluminescent wire: a battery-powered, plastic-coated wire that emits light for a glow-in-the-dark effect. The light intensity of EL technology is not very high, the best use is in low light = nightly settings.

The pattern and materials work together to soften the hard lines of the EL wire and to create a fiery animated effect when the dress is “walked”: the gold satin reflects the electro-luminescence, and the contrasting maroon chiffon overlay creates a range of light intensity as it floats closer and further away from the satin and EL. With 3AA batteries, the fire will burn for about 6 hours.

Next to the very detailed instruction on the Craftzine Blog, Laura gives a complete list of materials needed (total about $ 70-80) and sources where to get this materials (especially the technical stuff like EL-wire and power supply).

To make it very easy to follow, a total of 9 videos are part of the DIY instruction in which you can follow Laura through the whole skirt creation process.

This is the first of the 9 videos:
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQengkz3PB8[/video]

If you are in a hurry to get your own Fire Skirt, Laura is selling one on Etsy.com for $ 1,450.- At the time of this writing, it was still up for sale, so hurry over and order or …. DIY. Shouldn’t be too difficult with her fabulous instruction.