openMaterials

More interesting news from Stanford University’s research on carbon nanotubes, via a Printed Electronics World article: Ordinary textiles could be transformed into batteries that hold up to three times more energy than a mobile phone battery, by simply dipping them into nanoparticle-infused ink. Conventional batteries are made by coating metallic foil in a particle slurry and [...]

Pa++tern, created by Daito Manabe + Motoi Ishibashi, is a combination of an installation and an esoteric programming language for embroidery in which a series of industrial sewing machines are controlled by twiterers. Here’s the process: using a simple environment, users create a short program for an embroidery pattern and send it over to the [...]

Over at the Torvalds family blog, Linus has just written a really interesting post about helping his wife with a new computerised embroidery machine she got for Christmas. He talks about the problems with the proprietary/undocumented firmware and file formats. There’s progress being made in these series of posts (When you have an itch to [...]

Some things are so simple we don’t even think about writing them down. We assume everyone knows them. Well, that may often be true, but not always. The materials 101 series is our attempt at systematizing, through a series of thematic blog posts, some basic materials-related knowledge that is ‘out there.’ The series will thus provide [...]

Sewing Rebellion was started by textile worker and activist Frau Fiber, under the gospel “stop shopping, start sewing,” with the purpose of encouraging others to learn how to sew and thus be able to create unique and personal clothing. Working with accessible materials, sewing rebellion members are also known for the creativity with which [...]

I first heard about the Freedom in Interactive Wearable Art (FiiWA) from Tracy Gromek and Marcus Pingel at FashionCamp NYC 2009, where they discussed the challenges involved in creating safe, sturdy and adequate sporting equipment for visually impaired persons. Here’s a description of their creative and constructive project: FiiWA (Freedom in Interactive Wearable Art) is a [...]