Abstract of MIT Open Course Ware

New Textiles

This abstract intends to summarize the contents of the MIT Open Course Ware

New Textiles. The target of this abstract is to decide which materials are

important and which not according to prepare some assignments related with

e-textiles, also known as smart textiles. This course is focused to textile

students with no knowledge in the electronics area.

In the main part of the course (Readings, lectures and tutorials) we have been selected the

most important contents and developed them with the course information, but we have had

troubles in major amount of the points due to the lake of information, despite it’s supposed

to be a self-taught course with its part of theory and part of practice.

In the first lessons of the OCW course there is some general information about the course

including an introduction about the smart textiles. There are two different set of slides but

there is no important information inside. However in the 3rd lesson there is a very important

set of slides that explains the different type of materials (there is a larger list of materials but

they are not mentioned because there is no information about them) as well as an

introduction to many sensors fabricated with textiles. Here is a summary about the slides of

the 3rd lesson.

The first thing important to make smart textiles is to know the properties in the different

textile materials…

Conductive Materials (low resistance)

Conductive fabrics

Stretch conductive fabric - Silver plated Nylon

Soft and Safe shielding fabric – cotton, bamboo, silver

Nickel and copper plated ripstop fabrics

Conductive threads

117/17 2ply silver plated Nylon

234/34 4ply silver plated Nylon

Metal accessories

Beads

Snaps

Fasteners

Resistive Materials (high resistance)

Resistive thread

66 Yarn 22+3ply 110 PET

Resistive yarn

Schoeller - Polyester and Inox steel fiber

Anti-static materials

Velostat/Linqstat - Carbon impregnated Polyethylene film

Antistatic foam

Non-Conductive Materials (isolating)

Neoprene

Felt, Foam

Fusible Interfacing –"Iron-on”

Anti-fray, Fabric glue, Nail varnish

Once we know these three different types of materials we are ready to use our knowledge

for make sensors. First it’s important to define what a sensor is and which techniques and

tools do we have to make sensors based on textiles.

Conductive thread or yarn

Metal wrapped

• Fabric core wrapped with metal

• Highly conductive

• Beautiful

• Fragile

• Sewability: not machine sewable

Metal plated

• Fabric core plated with metal (usually silver)

• Reasonably conductive

• Plating tarnishes and cracks with washing and wear

• Can be polished

• Sewability: some varieties machine sewable

Spun stainless steel

• 100% stainless steel

• Highly conductive

• Corrosion resistant

• Difficult to work with

• Sewability: Some varieties machines sewable as bobbin thread

Sensor (from the free Merriam-Webster dictionary)

Sensor is a device that responds to a physical stimulus as heat, light, sound, pressure,

magnetism, or a particular motion and transmits a resulting impulse as for measurement or

operating a control. Definition

The Tools and Techniques for making sensors based on textiles are the following

• Sewing • Knitting • Crochet • Felting • Circular knitting machine • Spool knitter • Needle felting tools • Hole maker • Iron • Multimeter • LilyPad Arduino • Battery and holder, LEDs

The next step in the New-Textiles course is to show various sensors made with textile, as we

will see these sensors are easy to make and are able to join DIY (do it yourself) devices.

Diy from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Do it yourself (or DIY) is a term used to describe building, modifying, or repairing of

something without the aid of experts or professionals.

Fabric Sensors

•Fabric Button • Conductive Thread Pressure Sensor • Neoprene Bend Sensor • Pressure Sensor Matrix • Fabric Tilt Sensor • Fabric Potentiometer • Crochet Potentiometer • Stroke Sensor • Knit Stretch Sensors • Knit Touchpad

As this document is just an abstract of the OCW course, we will look the most important

sensors, leaving the reader to fill in much of the details entering into the 3rd lesson slides

from the original course.

We have chosen as the most significant sensors, the fabric button, the pressure sensor

matrix, the fabric potentiometer the stroke sensor and the knit stretch sensor.

Fabric Button

MATERIALS

• Neoprene • Fusible interfacing

• Stretch conductive fabric • Foam

Pressure Sensor Matrix

MATERIALS

• Neoprene • Conductive thread

• Stretch conductive fabric • Fusible interfacing

• Velostat

Fabric Potentiometer

MATERIALS

• Neoprene • Conductive thread

• Stretch conductive fabric • Resistive fabric

• Fusible interfacing

Stroke Sensor

MATERIALS

• Neoprene • Conductive thread

• Resistive thread • Conductive fabric

• Fusible interfacing

Knit Stretch Sensor

MATERIALS

• Resistive yarn • Regular yarn

Showed sensors are the most significant sensors of the slides, but in the course they also

recommend to visit some web pages with many more sensors. One of the best websites is

How to get what you want (http://www.kobakant.at/DIY) where you can find different type

of sensors but also actuators, connectors and much more devices that are required in an

electronic circuit. It has also information about conductive and non-conductive materials

specifying prices, the minimum order and much more.

Finally we present the Syllabus of the course just to note which topics were treated. Most of

them are guest lectures and there are also some tutorials and YouTube videos, but no one of

them are interesting for our purpose, that is why we only list them instead of develop its

content.

Lectures and readings syllabus

1. Introduction

- Materials: conductive fabrics, conductive threads and yarns

- Techniques: hand sewing, switch design

2. Conductive textiles

- Materials: conductive fabrics, conductive threads and yarns, LEDs

- Techniques: simple circuit design

3. Textile sensors

- Materials: resistive yarns, piezo resistive (pressure sensitive) materials

-Techniques: sensor design

4. Fabric PCBs, part 1

- Materials: conductive fabrics, fabric adhesives

- Techniques: soldering, circuit design

5. Guest lecture by Marcelo Coelho, MIT Media Lab

6. Fabric PCBs, part 2

- Materials: microcontrollers

- Techniques: laser cutting, microcontroller programming

- Machines: laser cutter

7. Guest lecture by Prof. Yoel Fink, MIT Materials Science and Engineering

8. Fibers and yarns

- Materials: fibers and yarns

- Techniques: spinning, metal wrapping, wire extrusion, etc.

- Fiber & yarn terminology, measurement units and methods

9. Guest lecture by Greg Rutledge, MIT Chemical Engineering

10. Spinning workshop

11. Nonwovens

- Materials: fibers (including natural, metal, fusible plastics, paper, etc.)

- Techniques: felting, fusing, sewing

12. Wearable computing, part 1 (joint class with 21W.789 Communicating with Mobile Technology)

- Materials: Arduino, AndroidTM

- Techniques: networking

13. Guest lecture by Tricia Wilson Nguyen, Thistle Threads

14. Wearable computing, part 2 (joint class with 21W.789 Communicating with Mobile Technology)

- Materials: Arduino, Android

- Techniques: networking

15. Guest lecture by Despina Papadopoulos, Studio 5050, NYU

16. Wearable computing assignment presentations, with 21W.789 Communicating with

Mobile Technology

17. Embroidery and printing

- Materials: threads, stabilizers, inks and paints

- Techniques: embroidery design, embroidering circuitry, algorithmic design, digital printing

- Machines: embroidery machine, printers

18. Guest lecture by Rehmi Post and Kit Waal, MIT

19. Final project proposal presentations

20. Guest lecture by Becky Stern, MAKE and CRAFT

21. Knitting and weaving

- Materials: yarns (cotton, wool, etc., conductive, resistive), knitting software

- Techniques: algorithmic knit and weave design, knitting and weaving software, knitting sensors

- Machines: knitting machines (circular and flat), jacquard looms, hand looms

22. Guest lecture by Anne Whiston Spirn, MIT

23. Field trip to the RISD Textile department

24. Knit, woven, embroidery presentations

25. Pattern design

- Techniques: pattern design, sewing

-Guest lecture by Sheila Kennedy, MIT Architecture and KVA

26. Visit from Kelly Dobson's "Textile Futures" class @ RISD

27. Final project presentations