Progress

After making sure we had all the components we needed we began to program the Lilypad and then soldered everything together. When that was completed we tested it a few times and we sewed up the wings on the dress, then covered them with a see-through fabric.

Fitting all the components inside the dress

Here are some photos of where we placed the various components to make this dress work how we wanted it to. This includes LED's, battery, Liliypad and bend sensor.

Creating the dress

Making and sewing the dress took quite a lot of time but I got there in the end and the end result looks exactly like we wanted so I'm glad that worked out. We chose the fabric together and then I took it home to start our project.

New proposal

Inspired by the act of flying we have changed our proposal to using flex sensors under the arms and LEDs on the wings to express this motion. So as you lift your arm the LEDs gradually light up until the arm is lifted at a 90 degree angle, then all the LEDs will be on and begin to look like they are slowly pulsating. This gives the impression of quite a calm and relaxing feel which is what you would feel if you could really fly.

I have been delegated to making the dress with the wings on it and we both chose back as the main colour for easy viewing of the LEDs.

The M-Dress by CuteCircuit

Is that your dress ringing? The M-dress by CuteCircuit is a mobile phone dress that can answer calls with a lift of the arm.

CuteCircuit is a fashion company in London that focuses on the development of wearable technology. They use intelligent textiles and microelectronics to help create a new function for clothing that can provide personal communication. Their aim is to create ‘emotionally rich experiences’ for its users. The founders Francesca Rosella and Ryan Genz have been featured widely in the media, being on National Geographic Television and BBC World Technology. They also both hold a Master in Interaction Design from Interaction Design Institute in Ivrea. CuteCirucuit has had its products exhibited at Wired NextFest for two years in a row in NYC and LA. (Wired NextFest is an annual festival of innovative products and technologies organised by Wired, an American magazine).

The M-dress is a silk jersey dress that has a normal sim card inserted in the side tag on the inside of the dress. When you hear the dress ringing you simply answer by lifting your hand to your ear and the sensor opens the call for you. For easy functionality CuteCircuit introduced special gesture recognition software to make the user experience intuitive.

I think this is a good concept and can become something worn in the future, especially because women tend to wear clothes with tight or small pockets, or even no pockets at all to put a phone in. This often leads to missed calls and I know I’ve had this problem in the past where my phone gets buried in my bag and I can’t here incoming calls. So I think this idea will help in those kinds of situations. Also I think a range for men would be a good idea too as many business men use their mobile phones primarily to communicate so this would be an efficient way to do that, by just lifting their arm. Though not sure what happens when you get a text and where that is received or how you view that, maybe this dress is purely a phone only? . . .

CuteCircuit website: http://www.cutecircuit.com

Proposal

This was inspired by the book I'm reading called The Iron King by Julie Kagawa, which is about fey creatures - faeries.

This dress will have LEDs in the 'petals' and pressure sensors on only the side petals so that when you swing your arms while walking you will trigger different petals to turn on the LEDs and make them sort of shimmer. Also there will be a speaker as the center of the bow on the back and depending on whether you move or not it will play melodic music. Gossamer fabric may be used over each petal to let the light through but hide LEDs.