INITIAL OBSERVATIONS:

the midterm for my physical computing assignment ended up manifesting itself through several different iterations.  i initially chose an idea that revolved around wearable technology because i wanted to learn how to integrate traditionally “hard” circuits and components into something soft.

having a background that included jewelry design and fashion, i knew i also wanted to make the object to have the ability to stand on its own.

traditional uses of jewelry have ranged from:
1. a means of personal expression
2. mementos of an important friend or family member–lockets, family heirlooms
3. symbols of relationships–  engagement rings, friendship bracelets
4. cultural and religious purposes — rosary beads, crosses, etc.

some traditional uses of jewelry

and traditionally jewelry has been made from precious materials, metals, gemstones, etc.  mainly because craftsmen were limited in the availablity of materials.  however, starting with the introduction of plastics, glass, and various other material composites, designers began to bridge and break the boundaries of what was considered jewelry.  my hope would be that this piece would be something that would be able to also bridge several of these ideas as well.  something that would emphasize the wearer and the wearer’s interactions with others and something that would use the materials now available to us (in this case technology).

PROTOTYPING

Our first initial concept for the piece was that in consideration that much of the principle behind having an accessory is to enhance our appearance to the outside world, we aim instead, to have the outside environment complete our wearable object

our goal is:
to create an object that will only be affected until the wearer has interactions (whether it be specifically people or the environmental surroundings)

possible applications are:
- ear muffs
- tshirt
- necklace
- bracelet

methods for achieving this are:
- force sensors
- pressure sensors
- light sensors
- vibration sensor
- sound sensor (programming to recognize the human voice frequency)

possible outputs are:
- changes color
- changes shape
- moves (reacts)
- makes sounds

In the end, we chose to use sound as the means for which to demonstrate when our user would be having an interaction with someone else. unfortunately however, i don’t think we quite realized how much of an investment learning how to build a microphone and op-amp circuit would be.  but we were committed to the task and kept going with the help of a few people and mr. oscilloscope!

some of the initial problems we encountered was the amplification of our microphone signal.  the microphone signal itself was not strong enough so we needed to use an op-amp with a line signal of roughly -1 and 1 volts to get us anywhere at all.  however, sound being an AC signal and having an oscillating wave meant that we weren’t getting half the readings that we wanted.  in which case, we learned about the full-wave bridge rectifier using four diodes and a capacitor to help flip the bottom half of our AC waves into DC and the capacitor to smooth it out.

some other new issues that we encountered were learning how to take our circuit off the breadboard and on to something more portable and something more compact.  we at first began soldering our components onto small perf boards but soon realized that we would be needing something even more flexible which is when we started to experiment with using conductive thread.  we also attempted to use a lilypad arduino but unfortunately realized that we were missing the lilypad’s usb link!  but i hope to use it sometime in the near future to test its possibilities.

MOVING ON TO THE FINAL PRODUCT:

meanwhile, i was experimenting with various fabrics and materials to use for our piece to get the right look and feel for what we wanted.  however knowing that we wanted to use light as our output, i strove to find materials that would be somewhat translucent and transparent in order to display our led lights adequately.  as a design intention however, i knew that i wanted to contrast both the organic quality of our materials with the inorganic nature of technology but also at the same time to embrace the products of technology in a way that wasn’t cohesive.

we also couldn’t resolve the recurring problem of the microphone not picking up the sound of our voice or near voices versus noise in general.  this led us to change our initial idea of a human voice as the sign of interaction to the idea that an intimate interaction can be one that is not necessarily between just two people.  thus the new concept became…

…as we find that an increasing number of our interactions with people become non-personal through the use of email, telephones, IM, etc.  the moments of standing close to someone and whispering something in their ear as an act of intimacy and closeness between two people become fewer and far between.  in light of this, we strove to create an object that would display that act of intimacy between two people, encouraging a more physical means of communication and in effect, publicly celebrating it and making it an interaction of many between the viewers, the wearer, and the person with whom the wearer is interacting.

from there, the whole thing came together more easily.  we hid the microphone in two head pieces that would be placed near the ear, namely a pair of earrings that would blend into one necklace and a headband for the other necklace.

FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS:

we obviously still need to figure out what happened to our objects on the day of our presentation.  but we are determined to have a working piece for next week’s class. in the meantime, some hopes that i have for the future of our project would be that we would be able to effectively make it portable (ie. small batteries, small microchip instead of the arduino, and a better means of making the connection in our pieces).

our powerpoint presentation.