V2_ Knowledgebase

SparkFun was founded in 2003 by Nathan Seidle, then a University of Colorado - Boulder engineering student. From meager beginnings (Nathan's college apartment), the company now employs over 60 people in an office in the outskirts of Boulder, Colorado. The SparkFun crew works in various departments such as engineering, marketing, production, shipping, and keg replenishment, all united in one common goal - Sharing Ingenuity.

Barbara Layne is the Director of Studio subTela at the Hexagram Institute where she works with a team of graduate students from Visual Arts and Engineering at Concordia University and a variety of international collaborators. The Studio is focused on the development of intelligent cloth structures for the creation of artistic, performative and functional textiles. Natural materials are woven in alongside microcomputers and sensors to create surfaces that are receptive and responsive to external stimuli. Controllable arrays of Light Emitting Diodes present changing patterns and texts through the structure of cloth. Wireless transmission systems have also been developed to support real time communication. In both wearable systems and site related installations, textiles are used to address the social dynamic of fabric and human interaction.

F.I.T. meets M.I.T. in Switch Craft, a book of 20 ultra-modern projects that are equal parts fashion and function. From a skirt that can streak trails of light on the dance floor to a laptop sleeve thatís the first to know when you're in a Wi-Fi zone, these projects are made for the wired (or wireless) world. Without sacrificing style or being more complicated than sixth-grade science class, they integrate lights, vibration, and sound with sewing to create edgy, attractive accessories and clothing. So if youíre ready to take your crafting not only to another level but another frontier, let Switch Craft bring your handiwork into the twenty-first century.

Mission Provide integrated yet customized education and scholarship to optimize apparel and related products, services, and experiences. Vision Leadership in education, scholarship and engagement focusing on apparel and related products, services and experiences in a global context. http://www.aeshm.hs.iastate.edu/about.php

Three people are portrayed digitally by scanning their bodies. The output of this scan is a 3d file, which resolution is defined by the amount of polygons, similiar to pixels in a bitmap grafic. Linked with their biographical memories a digital twin of the body is thus created, which expands and personifies the garment in a formal-poetic way. The 3d data is turned into 2d sewing patterns by the use of the unfolding function which is a common tool in industrial design process to make paper models with, the single fabric pieces and the inner interface which defines the edges are cut out by the help of a lasercutter.

Unravel: the SIGGRAPH2006 Fashion Show presents a runway show of innovative and experimental works in computational and conceptual couture, fashion with a social agenda, science-inspired form, and new technologies of material fabrication. Unravel brings together the work of designers and artists from the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia who are seeking to redefine the notion of ‘wearable.’ In the increasingly mobile nature of contemporary life, it has become important to contemplate how the devices we carry and the garments we wear converge into a ‘secondary skin’ which function as an extension of ourselves, in both ability and perception. By using fashion, a medium which has always been associated with self-expression and personal identity, these designers seek to demonstrate how the use (or misuse) of technology and its modes of production have the power to stimulate, delight, and inspire in ways as yet untapped in the fashion world. Gone are the stereotypical bulky cyborg devices; what emerged are garments of beauty, subtlety and elegance in form. Some bring to light important social issues — redefining our notions of personal space, networked environments, and issues of privacy and protection. Others relish in pure delight, reminding us how technology also has the power to enhance our personal relationships and celebrate fantasy and play as part of the human condition.

-Wifi jacket: While I was orignally working with basic light stripes, I ultimately decided to integrate them with a flower motif. This design choice was made to recount the age old story of borrowing from the environment to decorate garments - think floral and animal print patterns. Since Wi-Fi is so prevalent in the environment now, I thought it would be interesting to integrate this representation of a man-made part of our environment into a garment in that same way. In the end design, flowers referencing our natural environment are juxtaposed with technology from the synthetic environment. -'Intimate Controllers' is a platform where video games are played by couples touching each other. The platform consists of two controllers, a bra for the female player and boxer shorts for the male player. Each controller is embedded with 6 sensors placed with varying degrees of intimacy in relation to the body part with which they correspond. Players must pass game levels together and in doing so, game play results in increasingly intimate positioning. The goal of this project was to research and create objects that challenge the traditional notions and orientation of video game play.