Report craft stories b1 2

Report Craft stories B1.2 Wearable senses

Ben Muntinga Lars Pasch Jolijn van Sleeuwen Seth Teekens Coach: Leonie Tenthof van Noorden

Table of content Introduction First Explorations Second Explorations Smocking in smart direction Prototype: Dynamic light User test Final concept Future Conclusion References

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First Explorations Textile Museum

Introduction

The goal of craft stories The goal of Craft Stories, one of the projects in the Wearable Senses theme, is to rediscover the values of crafts.

This is achieved by merging crafts, storytelling, using grannies knowledge,

and turning innovative techniques into meaningful interactive textile products, services and systems.

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Introduction After recently having finished your education and bought your first single room apartment, you started with working not long ago. The job is really time consuming and when one deadline is finished, two new ones appear. Your job requires that you work behind your desktop at home all day and often all evening as well. It is not uncommon that you tend to forget the time. Your sleep rhythm gets disturbed and therefore you start to get more tired over time.

Somno is an improvement of the clock radio. On a sunny morning, it will start to go up half an hour before your wake up time. On a cloudy day, Somno will start emitting light itself to reproduce the natural sunlight. In the evening, it will start to dim half an hour before you would like to go to sleep. Beside the clock radio function, Somno does more.

As soon as it is getting dark outside, Somno will go down. Similar to this, Somno will go up when it is getting light (unless you want to sleep in). Somno comes with a remote control and mobile application, for when there is no interest in leaving the bed.

In this project was chosen for the traditional craft of Smocking, a medieval broidering technique of giving a garment more stretch and the ancestor of the elastic. Besides, the patterns and the movement of the fabric are an unique aesthetic characteristic.

What if there was something that gives reminders of the time, not only a morning but also evening clock? Now there is: Somno, the dynamic lighting system. Somno is a curtain made with the medieval craft of smocking, that helps people with going to sleep and waking up in a natural and calming way.

In order to keep the person in a natural rhythm, it makes use of the sunlight. If there is no sunlight, Somno will start to emit light itself in a uniform way.

The possibilities of smocking range very wide, from clothing to bed sheets.

The patterns emit a certain sense of calmth, which can be related to sleeping.

Besides, the three-dimensional structure of smocking is very well suited for integrating electronics, which makes it an ideal craft to combine with modern techniques.

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First Explorations Textile Museum

First Explorations Textile Museum

After the Wearable Senses kick off, it was time to get familiar with the context of craft stories. Therefore, a visit to the Textile museum in Tilburg was planned. The museum gave a good indication of how much dedication goes into traditional crafts. Besides, it was a great source of inspiration. Since it was the first week, it was time to set up a

global planning as a group and discuss the interests of every group member.

Everything that was found interesting by someone was printed and pasted on the wall, for inspiration.

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First Explorations Next to the workshop organised

by Wearable Senses, where all the machines and basic techniques like sewing and the heat press were explained, it was helpful to understand all the traditional crafts. Therefore a division was made:

specialities ranging from toughness to ventilation. Beside the functional value, the aesthetics of each of the patterns was different.

Knitting

Seth had the task to a analyze and explore and to see the opportunities of it. He discovered that knitting is a real craft since it consumes a lot of time and dedication. The unique characteristics of knitting were especially the stretch within the fabric and the fact that it was very suitable for integrating electronics, since conductive wire could be integrated exWeaving actly where needed when knitting.

This was done by Seth as well. The interesting part of weaving was the stretch in certain directions. Whereas the paper sample was unstretchable in horizontal and vertical direction, it was very stretchable in the diagonal direction instead. Weaving was also tried with other materials, like rubber for instance, but they were less successful than the paper sample.

Crocheting

Lars made a start on crocheting. He realized that crocheting was even more time-consuming than knitting. The unique characteristics of crocheting were that it was very easy to shape the fabric in the shape that was needed.

Besides, there are many different styles and patterns that each have their own

Embroidering

Ben started with finding out how embroidering works. He bought an embroidery starter kit and came to the conclusion that it is harder than it looks. His findings were that embroidering creates a kind of 3D-layer on top of the garment, which could be used for touching, next to the aesthetic value of embroidery.

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Second Explorations Exploration in new techniques

At this point, a lot of attention had already been paid to the traditional techniques and crafts. In the second phase of exploration it was the idea to focus more on technology and smart materials.

The main focus topics are listed below.

Stretch & conductive yarn

The idea of measuring stretch in fabric during the first exploration phase was now to be realized. To do this, an electronic circuit had to be set up to measure the resistance over a conductive thread and an arduino program should be written to read off the results. Luckily, this all went quite smoothly and now it was possible to read various values dependent on how far the conductive wire was stretched.

Although, there was a small problem. There were two kinds of conductive yarn, coated and uncoated.

Since the yarn was probably going to touch the body in a later stage, the coated one would be best Textile Museum suitable. For this thread, the software was sadly not very accurate.

When measuring conductive sem urna, ut rhoncus orcithe tempus Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur wire itself itac. was not asit problem, but sinceipsum. the wire Donec amet consequat adipiscing elit. Aliquam suscipit tempor garment, theneque. relativeNulla stretch Fusceinto efficitur viverra tellus, a malesuada urna. Nam atwould nisi be sown would less and harder read.nec, This is eros diam, ornare quistoodio dignissim, congue leo ut, molestie me- be much where the accumsan software became inaccurate and not tus. In eu congue arcu. Cras auctor faciliconvallis orci. In non orci trustworthy.

After a day of rewriting the program, sis varius. Vestibulum eget fringilla eros. non tortor volutpat hendrerit vel vitae the problem was solved and the stretch could est. Fusce tempus sit amet enim nonbe Nullam elementum posuere leo, nec measured again. porttitor.

Maecenas molestie tellus risus, facilisis dui. Cras eget fermentum leo, quis hendrerit lectus imperdiet nec. ut ullamcorper felis. Class aptent taciti The conclusion of this exploration was that sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia Suspendisse potenti. Aliquam ac ultricies conductive yarn could be used to measure stretch nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Curaerat. Curabitur et luctus mauris. Quisque or touch within a garment.

Coated yarn would be bitur aliquet vitae libero quis ornare. non ex dui. Vivamus condimentum bestin, suitable if the touched the body and arcu nisi,thread a lobortis orci venenatis sed.

Nullam lorem nunc, molestie id velit could only be used for stretch.

Uncoated yarn feugiat fringilla augue. Sed pulvinar vel Phasellus fringilla viverra vehicula. In best option if something should mi justo sapien, consectetur pharetra erat sed luctus. Cras malesuada would nisi at be the happen when threadcommodo would be velit. touched. tellus pharetra pulvinar. nec,the posuere

First Explorations

Suspendisse potenti. Nulla consectetur 7

Second Explorations Exploration in new techniques Graphite and Graphene

Meanwhile explorations with graphite were done.

The inspiration came from this video https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XGVMXCxBNA in which you can see textile that changes shape by putting a voltage on the graphite that is in between the material. After a couple try-outs to recreate this the realization came that you need way too much voltage in order to achieve this shape shift.

Therefore the decision was made not to continue with this. Another interesting quality of graphite is its conductivity when put on textile (or any other surface). The results of the experiments with this are: Graphite powder semi Graphite powder thick Graphite with soap Graphite with soap and water Graphite with milk

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The qualities of graphite are intriguing. Therefore more research was done. By doing this research graphene was found on the internet. Graphene had even more interesting qualities, because it is the lightest and most bendable material that exists and therefore very useful for projects with textile.

To gain more information a TED talk was watched (TED Talks ,2014). It is possible to create your own graphene (Robert Smith, 2014) In order to get help to create graphene an email was sent to the science department of the TU/e. Unfortunately they responded after more than a month which was too late, because the exploration time was over by then.

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Second Explorations Exploration in new techniques Conductive glue

To implement more technology into the explorations, another chosen direction was the area conductive glue. Conductive glue can be used on textile to keep the fabric in a certain form, which could be interesting to make 3D and movable models, as experienced during the pressure cooker.

The experiment started with help of a tutorial.

When all the right materials were found, and the emulsion got mixed and stirred, a strange chemical reaction occurred. The ingredients did not blend and the emulsion became a big block of solid material. After trying different proportions of water, the emulsion did go on paper. The resistance was checked with a multimeter and the conclusion was that the resistance of the ‘glue’ was to high. Troy gave the advice to use more energy and power during the mix process in order to let the molecules in the emulsion get stick together.

Therefore a second experiment was set up and therefore a rolling-pin and a plastic bag to mix was used. The analysis of the new emulsion differed less from the first results. The resistance was still to high to let the glue be conductive. Due to the two different experiments the conclusion was made to let go of the conductive glue in the process.

Ventilation of materials

By making holes in stretch fabric, the holes opened or closed when pulling in a certain direction. To explore this more, several samples were made.

It became clear that it only worked with stretch fabrics. To get the fabric more upright, some samples had been ironed and some had stitches at the sides of the cuts in a way that the fabric creates a 3D structure. From the different samples the triangle and arc 3D structures worked the best.

Those closed when the fabric was pulled in the 9

Second Explorations Exploration in new techniques

length of the cut and in neutral position they were open.

The small samples worked fine, but when there were more cuts made next to each other the middle cuts did not close enough. Also other ways of placing the cuts, in a circle, in a pattern or in an arch did not give the satisfying results.

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Smocking in smart direction Introduction Smocking

The reason for exploring deeper into the field of smocking is due to the opportunity of dynamic movements of a smocked piece of textile. To try out if every pattern creates an interesting movement, and to see if the movements will be different with use of other materials, samples were made. Because this craft is not well known anymore and combining it with modern techniques had the greatest chance of leading to innovative ideas.

clothing, before elastic was introduced.

This practical quality was the reason that smocking was mostly used by labourers in opposition to the other embroidery techniques which were solely for decoration. This is why the name smocking comes from smock which is the name of a farmer’s shirt. (Nefffa, 2004)

Smocking is a craft that was used most often in the 18th and 19th century.

Smocking is an embroidery technique.

The smocking technique gives the textile more stretch which was useful for 11

Smocking in smart direction Smocking Smart Wire

The idea of smock fabrics with use of Smart Memory Alloy (SMA) was inspired by an article on kobakant. at (Kobakant, 2014), a platform for wearable technologies. This is an alloy that “remembers� its original shape and returns to its pre-deformed shape when heated. The heat fase is possible to create when there is high power on the wire.

In order to be able to experiment with the movement of the fabric, a pattern to enable movement was needed. By shortening the threads between the connection points in the fabric, the fabric will change from a flat surface to a smocked pattern. Although the

contraction of the treads was not super flexible, the result was interesting because of its form transition.

This exploration triggered curiosity in the working of real SMA in a smocked pattern. During a testing session of this material the conclusion was that the SMA needed to much power whereupon this SMA became useless in a wearable product. This result led to an end of the exploration with SMA.

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Smocking in smart direction Brainstorm

During this brainstorm session the focus was on making something with smart materials or using a stretch sensor or combining these two aspects. This brainstorm session took place on the TU/e campus which was useful, because this made it possible to ask trespassing students and employees of the TU/e for their ideas. This led to the following objects and applications:

Hammock Seatbelt Dog leash Medical Sports: stretch sensor as registration Burglar alarm Bridge Decoration at parties Alarm clock Hat Games Masks

Trampoline Bicycle lock Bulletproof vest Airbag Curtain Heating/ventilating clothing Flexible headphones Bungeejump Guitar strap Crumple zone Blanket Tent When the team discussed the results of the brainstorm during a coach session, the coach advised to have those ideas and results in mind while exploring further on materials. Due to the material focused approach the team agreed with this approach and decided to go into a deeper exploration.

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Smocking in smart direction Smocking and conductivity

As mentioned before of the main unique characteristics of smocking is the stretch. When stretching a smocked fabric, there are two main stages: the compressed and the stretched stage.

In the compressed stage, each of the individual pieces of fabric touches the next one. If all the touching parts make contact with each other, a current can flow through the fabric. Similarly, the electric circuit can be interrupted by stretching the garment.

Now had to be tested whether the idea was really attainable. Therefore, a small circuit with an arduino, two cables and an LED light was set up. If the circuit was closed, the LED should start to emit light.

For the first lo-fi prototype, aluminum foil was attached to each of the pieces that touched each other. Then, one cable was attached to the left side of

the sample and the other cable was attached to the right side of the sample.

The LED would only turn on as soon as the sample was compressed. The idea of conductivity in smocking worked and now it was time to integrate the technology in a better way.

Due to the experience and knowledge gained in the first exploration phase with conductive wire, it seemed a good idea to sew conductive wire through the parts of the second sample that touched each other. In this way, there would no longer be aluminum foil attached with tape visible, but nicely integrated wire.

Testing the second sample gave the same conclusion as the first one, which meant that it worked and could be successfully used if needed.

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Smocking in smart direction Smocking lasercut

The reason for using lasercut in the smocking patterns was about using new techniques to adapt fabrics for smocking. With use of different little gaps it could be possible to filter light through the patterns and that could be interesting in contexts as curtains or lamps for example.

Through making use of the laser cutter it was also possible to engrave the smock pattern on the textile. This made it easier to adapt the textile into smock.

The pattern for the laser cutter was made in illustrator and while designing the pattern it was difficult to imagine where the gaps were appearing in the final form. This resulted in a smocked

piece where the gaps were not at the right place. Because of the gaps, the flexibility of the smocked piece decreased and the effect of flexibility in the textile disappeared.

The engravement of the pattern was a great advantage of the lastercutter, but cutting gaps in the textile decreased the uniqueness of the smocked piece.

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Smocking in smart direction Expert meeting Tomico

In the middle of the design process, Oscar Tomico gave some very useful feedback by showing us where our weak points were in the concept and how to improve them. Tomico showed us that smocking can also be used in different ways what would allow us to use the characteristics of the fabric structure more. For example what if light falls on it, will it bend differently when the smocking pattern is stretched?

Is it possible that the structure gives a sponge effect when it is in water?

He advised to test what smocking can do, where you could use it and how. And then get quickly to a concept that uses the characteristics of smocking in a new way.

After these new samples were created to test smocking with different pattern on different materials to explore the characteristics.

The feedback of Tomico helped us to look better and more critical to our concept. It helped us generate new ideas and look further than the obvious answers.

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Smocking in smart direction Smocking patterns

One advantage of smocking is that absolute surface of the textile is bigger than the relative surface of the smocked piece. To use the advantage of the big surface, the absorption of water was chosen as a direction and therefore a dishcloth and a water repellent textile were smocked. Unfortunately there were no special effects occurring during the test with the water tap and the smocked fabrics.

Another research direction was about increasing the stiffness of the material, how would the final smocked piece react on that? To make this happen, two different materials (a thick fabric and the water repellent fabric), were attached together. As a consequence it was very hard to apply a smock pattern to the fabric. The stiffness did not really

improve the quality of the smocked piece, so this experiment led to an end again.

During the analysis of the first piece of smocked material, the change of surface was highlighted. This property could input for light reflection and therefore a rescue blanket was bought and applied on a thicker fabric, to prevent break in the reflection material. Although the final piece was not flexible at all, the exposure to light was interesting. The perception of light changed when the smocked piece was stretched. This was had not a big effect, but it made the team think of other possibilities to include light.

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Prototype: Dynamic light Middemoday

After the exploration phases it was time to move towards a concept and to head into a more precise direction.

For the midterm demo day two samples were prepared. One smocking example in a frame and one smocking example with a sleeve attached to it so that people could try it on. By showing the frame and letting people try on the sleeve, feedback and new ideas were received. Namely that the smocking could be used as an aerodynamic ice skating suit or something for in water.

Arne Hendriks’ advice was to look at

the Thorny Devil since the smocking pattern reminded him of that of an animal. The characteristics of animals were interesting to look at, however none of them were useful for this project. Another suggestion was that the smocking might be useful for warming or cooling. This was used when trying to make a ventilating material.

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Prototype: Dynamic light Research Dynamic Lights

The conclusion was that the most interesting aspect of the smocking is the movement and that the smocking adds something to the way light presents itself. That is how the direction dynamic lights started. This is the final direction.

A research session was done in order to find inspiration for the final concept.

Some examples that were found are:

car adjust to the speed and the light from outside. (Porsche, 2007) Different examples from philips including Lumalive fabrics (Peter Harold, 2006) and luminous textiles (Living projects, 2015)

The Porsche Cayenne Turbo. Which is a car with a dynamic lighting system were the illumination and headlights of the 19

Prototype: Dynamic light Prototyping

Due to the decision of creating dynamic light with use of smocked material, directions of this approach were analyzed. What if the smocked material reflects light? How would light be perceived if light is integrated in a smocked fabric? To make a right decision later on, all the samples were made on a bigger scale and in a frame.

Also the technique of connecting the points of the smock pattern together was revised and other methods were explored.

Because it takes a while to apply smocking patterns to a fabric, the use of metal clips was analyzed. Unfortunately this did not work out because the metal clips were too flexible.

The experiment of the smocked rescue blanket could be improved and therefore a metallic colored and stretched fabric was used for a big

sample. First it was the plan to use a more reflective material, like a reflective paint or reflecting fabric, unfortunately none of the planned materials were available. Because the honeycomb smock transforms the most between the non stretched and the stretch phase, this pattern was applied to the fabric.

Because the smocking was all created by hand it took a while before finishing the big sample. During the testing in the lightlab came through that the fabric did not give the reflection effect the team hoped for.

Another sample was made of a more see through fabric where the arrow pattern was applied to. The idea was to make this sample look and feel subtle rather than the loud metallic look of honeycomb sample. In this sample a few leds were integrated.

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User test The direction of the project became more clear due to different experiments of our prototypes. But how do people and users perceive the prototypes? And in what context could it be used?

A user test was set up and 5 different potential users were invited to the lightlab to experience the prototypes.

The test was set up in a little room with a mirrored window (one way mirror, one way window) which enabled the team to observe the user test. When the user entered the room, he/she was asked to

conspicuous aspect of the prototype?’.

The global questions were followed up with open questions about how the user perceives the prototypes. ‘Where does the movement make you think about?’, ‘What prototype do you prefer?’ ‘In which space do you see these prototypes?’ and ‘Which way of light do you prefer?’.

There were also some practical issue regarding the prototypes. Should it dim light? And what do people do or do not like if the prototype is in a certain context. Therefore questions as ‘Do you prefer daylight or LED light if you could choose a curtain?’

Results

wait a few minutes until the interviewer came in. These few minutes were meant to observe how the user explored the prototypes, do they touch it? Interact with it?

The results were surprising. The users really tried to imagine the curtain in a context and the reactions were positive.

Contexts that were mentioned differed: smock patterns in a dress, in a bedroom as curtain or blanket, integrated in a luxaflex for in offices and another thought it was art. About the colour and the sort of smock the users were consent. The metallic coloured smocked textile was more seen in a professional context whereas the blue smock gave a more cosy feeling. Conclusion, the results gave mainly insight in possible options for the concept.

After a few minutes the interviewer came and started asking questions. The first questions were globally oriented.For example ‘Which emotion are triggering you when you look at the prototypes?’ and ‘What do you think is most 21

User test Brainstorm and decision

related. On the one hand there was It was important for the process to the art installation in the lobby of a specify in a certain context, and start hotel, which should provide a arty and building on a final concept. Therefore exclusive experience. On the other a brainstorm and decision session was hand the team thought of a curtain in a organised. There were three directions sleeping room which could function as to make a choice on: the sort of space, a sort of biological clock. Because the the function and the looks of the majority prefered the function aspect of concept. the curtain, rather than the art aspect The approach of this session was to of the installation, the team choose to write down personal preferences. After a focus on a cozy, calming, curtain in the quick post it round, everyone explained context of a sleeping room. why they choose for that direction.

The main discussion was about the function and space, which are quite

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Final concept Concept description

This project enhances the natural sleeping rhythm of people. The working load in society is high and people tend to forget that sleeping is very important. This is why Somno is invented, the dynamic lighting system. Somno is a smart curtain which makes sure that people can go to bed and wake up in a natural and calm way, without any worries. Special attention was paid to people who live and work in one room. The idea was that these people have a calm place to sleep again.

Somno works just like a clock radio, but then with additional functions. In the morning, the curtain will go up half an hour before you want to wake up, to wake you up in a natural way. On days when the sun’s not shining, somno will start to emit light itself to wake you up. Besides, Somno makes sure that you can go to sleep in a comfortable way. Half an hour before the evening clock (which you can determine yourself), Somno starts to dim its light, or if the sun is still shining, the curtain will go down.

Without looking at the clock, you realise that it is time to go to bed and therefore sleeping becomes more intuitive.

The inspiration comes from the craft smocking. For the project, the main reasons for using smocking were the movement in the fabric and the patterns.

Due to the calmth that the fabric emits, it suits the bedroom and can be related to sleeping. Besides, the three dimensional structure of smocking is useful for hiding electronics in it, especially the fact that LED lights will not be directly visible, but spread light in a uniform way.

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Final concept Target group

Somno is a new high tech product. This type of products usually appeals mostly to people who just finished university and just got a new job. This group is often referred to as ‘starters’. They do not have children yet and therefore have enough money to spend on new innovative products.

‘Starters’ often live in lofts or studios which is ideal for Somno since the product focusses on people who work and live in the same room.

Decision of textile

The decision of the textile was made on the market. During the user test it became clear that users liked the blue and silky looking textile over the stretch metallic coloured textile. This was the reason to look for a blueish color, which feels flexible and soft. The decision was also influenced by the costs of the fabrics. Although this is a decision the team made, in the future other preferations could be implied.

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Final concept Technology

The technology can be split in three parts, the curtain, the console and the app. Those three work together and communicate to each other.

Curtain The curtain has a built in sensor (Light Dependent Resistor) to detect the quantity of daylight. If the daylight is to low to wake-up someone in the morning, the system automatically recognizes that at will use the 80 built-in LED’s.

These LED’s are dimmable, what means if there is only a little bit more light needed, the natural daylight and the LED’s can work together to create an as natural wake-up as possible.

The curtain contains also two servo motors which control the up and down movement of the curtain.

Everything together is controlled by a micro chip processor and powered by a 9v DC source.

Console The console is meant to control the curtain. It has a display with the ability to choose when and how late you want to be waked up and when you want to go to bed. Also it has the ability to choose to light up the curtain to use it as a night lamp. At last you can also manually control the movement of the curtain, for example when you want some privacy in the room.

App The app has the same functions as the console but on another device. This is handy if you want to control the curtain when the console is not nearby.

The app has to run on android, ios and windows phone.

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Final concept

Design problems & solutions There are some possible situations that need to be considered.

The first one is the problem that occurs when people are not in their bedroom during the evening and if they do not work in their bedroom.

There are two solutions to this problem. It is possible to create multiple Somno’s for the entire house. Another option is to create a notification on your mobile phone when Somno’s lights are starting to dim.

The second thing to consider is that you cannot turn Somno off like you put of the sound of a regular alarm clock. Therefore Somno does not ‘know’ whether you are actually awake. On the other hand a regular alarm clock does not know this either.

The third problem is when two people in the same bedroom have different alarm clock times in the morning. This problem correlates with the second one, because Somno has to wake one person and let the other person continue to sleep. Therefore it would be useful if Somno ‘knows’ when the first person is awake so that the curtains can go down again and enable the second person to continue sleeping. A solution for this is that you have to push a button on the console or on the app to let Somno know you are awake.

The costs are also a major issue since curtains are quite expensive. Adding all the technology and the smocking of the curtain might make the curtain too expensive for a commercial product. An analysis of the overall costs has not been made, however costs can be reduced by making machines for smocking so that it is possible to mass produce Somno.

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Future

The development of Somno What does the future look like for Somno? After observing the final prototype at the demo days there were a few points that required improvement if developed in the future. These mainly were: a portable console, an app, the integration of the electronics, the light and long term user testing.

Portable console

In order to reach a bigger target group, the first thing that will be further developed is the portable console.

Whereas currently only people who work and sleep in the same room are

the projected users, a portable console that gives light as soon as the curtains go up or down would make sure that also people who do not work or sleep in the same room could be new users. The console could be connected with the curtain via bluetooth or wifi, since it will remain in a close (no further than the house) range.

The App

Another future goal is a working application for mobile devices. Since many people have their phone always

with them, there is no longer need to get up and switch the lights of the curtain on. A second advantage of the application is that the alarm in the morning can be set and also turned off without having to leave your bed. Lastly, some users gave the feedback that they sleep with underwear only and would not appreciate it if their neighbours saw them. Therefore, it is possible to let the curtain go down again while still in the bed, in order to privately put on more clothes.

Integration of the electronics

In the current prototype, all of the electronics are still very visible on the backside of the curtain. This gives a realistic image of how much electronics and LED’s were necessary to give uniform light to the curtain, but should be hidden in future prototypes.

A technique like using conductive thread between the LED’s instead of a complete strip would be something to explore. Next, the servo’s made quite a loud noise, which is not ideal if the idea behind the concept is to wake up in a natural way. In the future, a look should be taken at isolation and or silent motors.

The light (color and intensity)

An improvement on the light itself is also a possibility. Whereas currently there is only the option to dim the light, it should become the possibility to change the color of the light in the future as well.

This could be done by means of the mobile application or the console. Both of the devices will contain a number of preset functions to create a certain 27

Future

The development of Somno atmosphere like “studying”, “romance” or “sleeping”. This last option leads to an additional improvement. Whereas currently blue light was used, it turned out to be that this color was the worst possible to look at before sleeping, since it makes someone feel awake. In the future, a switch to orangish light will be made since this color has the least amount of blue in it.

Long term user testing

A future dream would be to do longer user tests. This means, installing Somno in someones home for a couple of weeks, and get to know whether Somno is effective or how improvements could be made in order to make Somno successful. If it is known from user studies that something like this works, it makes it much easier to sell the product.

difficulties with getting enough sleep.

As mentioned before, it is possible to enlarge the target group by means of creating a device that makes it possible to effectively use the curtains while they are hanging in a different room.

Another possibility might be to focus on a secondary user group, people who suffer from burn outs and need reminders to make sure that they get back into a natural rhythm, at least for sleeping since this is the basis of feeling fresh and starting the day.

Production costs and market value It is difficult to say how much Somno is going to cost. A cost analysis is uptill now impossible to make since it is produced by hand. A dream would be to market Somno in the high end niche in the curtain and interactive installation branche.

Promotion strategy

As shortly explained above, the main promotion strategy will be using satisfied test users. The idea is that they are going to convince the people who are not really sure yet about whether a curtain is something for them or not. Another possibility is starting a kickstarter campaign. Since most of the kickstarter visitors (people who are interested in new technology and have money to spend) fall into the target group, they might be interested in buying it, helping with improvements and spread the word.

Possible market

Currently, the market are people who live and work in single room apartments, have money to spend and 28

Conclusion

Summary of the design process To summarize the project, there were difficulties at the beginning of the project. Since this way of working, thinking from the material instead of the solution and no clear purpose, was new for every group member it was hard to make a start.

For this reason, a lot of time went into exploring and broadening whereas making decisions and specifying would have been better. Although, this was the only group of craft stories that completely went out of its comfort zone by looking into graphite, graphene and memory wire. The exploration phases consumed a lot of time, but were a very useful learning experience.

A critical point for the end product was after the Pecha Kucha movie marathon. Whereas most groups got a confirmation about what they wanted to do, our group came to a few specific directions to explore. Instead of choosing a direction, another week was spent of new exploration. Explorations with conductive glue, graphite and stretch were made.

The first time that smocking came into mind, was for a combination wind a memory wire, nitinol. Jolijn started with a smogging sample, but did not have the nitinol yet to make it move. After more exploring, smocking occupied more and more time and was something which had a lot of potential. Jolijn found very interesting stretchable structures and they were stretchable in two ways. Lars then took the sample and did sewed some conductive wire through it. This

lead to a material that is conductive when squeezed together and not conductive when stretched.

Ben worked on three-dimensional ventilation and found that some materials open when stretch and others close when they are stretched. Seth worked on a stretching sleeve and started with working on a frame for jolijn her smocking.

From the mid demo day was the conclusion that there should be laid focus on smocking only, and only this is where the exploring ended. Since everyone liked the transformation of the material, it could create interesting combinations with the light. This is why was chosen for dynamic lighting.

Due to the long exploring, there was a delay on integrating the technology.

It took longer than expected, but in the end there were new samples, of which one made with the help of laser cutting. During pre demo day the project was given the value of design. The category in which the project fitted was attachement and knitting.

The feedback was that a context had to be chosen and maybe find one by doing a user test. Suggestions from the users:.

Curtains, Lamps or room dividers. The choice of curtains was made, since this had most to do with the original choice, integrating light.

In the end, it cost a lot of time to finish everything before the final demo days, but after a week and many hours at the 29

Conclusion

Summary of the design process university it was finished. Somno was ready. If there would have been two more weeks, a better version of somno could have been made and “long term” using tests could have been done. Now, it is only a future vision.

Achievement of project goal

The goal of Craft Stories was to rediscover the values of crafts. This was supposed to be achieved by merging crafts, storytelling, using grannies knowledge, and turning innovative techniques into meaningful interactive textile products, services and systems.

in order to create the final product more efficiently.

The final product meets the project requirements. In hindsight it would be better to have spend a bit more time on developing the concept since some important aspects, such as the costs, are not covered. Nevertheless the product delivers a meaningful service to improve the biological sleeping rythm and by doing so also reduces stress and improves the overal quality of life.

During the design process almost all of these aspects were covered.

The merging of crafts was done by combining the smocking technique and lasercutting, by stitching conductive yarn on textile and by using ‘Ali express’ for round knitting. The grannies knowledge was gained by learning old techniques such as knitting,crocheting and of course smocking. This knowledge can be used to create machines that can smock

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References Stone, A. (2014), Philips Hue review: programmable lighting for sleep and alertness.

Retrieved from: http://luciddreamingapp.com/philips-hue-review-programmablelighting-for-sleep-and-alertness/ Neffa, (2004), http://neffa.nl/nl/portfolio/smocking-research/ Smith, R. (2014). How to make graphite oxide [pdf]. Retrieved from: http://www. fwgltd.co.uk/index.php/how-to-make-graphene-oxide TEDxTalks (2014, January 12). Graphene Science [video file]. Retrieved from: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh3dA8xnZ4Y Kobakant (2014). SMA Smocking [blogpost]. Retrieved from: http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=5276 Living projects (2015) Retrieved from: http://livingprojects.nl/nl/producten/led/ color-changing/direct-view-rgb/philips-luminous-textile Harold, P. (2006) Retrieved from: http://www.texbac.de/ leuchtendeKleidungPhilipsphottext.pdf Porsche (2007) Retrieved from: http://www.porsche.com/international/models/cayenne/cayenne-s/safety/porschedynamic-light-system-pdls/

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