Final Project + Sample Book

Intention

For this project, I wanted to combine the skills I learned in E-Textiles with my current thesis research on inflatables. I was interested in creating a dynamic and transformable garment, thus  Quillted Sweater was born: a sweatshirt with 'quills' hidden up and down the wearer's back that inflate when pressure is applied through the sleeves. My initial inspiration came from projects like Anouk Wipprecht's Spider Dress and the BioLogic research at the MIT Tangible Media Lab. Unlike these projects, where the transformation is triggered by environmental or biological factors, I wanted my outfit to transform only when the person wearing it intentionally wanted the change. I imagined my outfit to be something a person could wear that would allow them to show when they're feeling really angry or frustrated. A natural gesture when feeling these emotions is to clench your hands into fists, so by locating a pressure sensor in the sleeves the wearer wouldn't have to think about pressing a specific button or flipping a switch. 

Process and/or Research

 I began my project by reviewing notes I'd already taken on inflatables for my own research. Most of the case studies were very large-scale inflatable environments, so I had to translate the methods and techniques to work at a much smaller scale. I combined the sewing and hand-stitching methods learned during class with heat-seaming techniques used in closed system pneumatic setups to make a mock-up of one of the quills. Specifically, I used a tabletop impulse seamer to make the long continuous seam of the quill. To attach it to a base, I used a soldering iron to allow me to follow a circular path. The hardest part with heat seaming my inflatable was to make sure there were enough escape gaps for the air to pass through. Since my outfit relies on a fan, air is continuously blown into the quills- if I sealed them to tightly they would pop! I wanted each quill to be an individual piece rather than making the entire back panel of the sweater inflate, so I had to figure out how to attach the quills to the garment. By cutting holes in the base layer and leaving a wide seam around the base of the quill, it can feed through the hole and the seam can be sewn to the sweater. A secondary layer of fabric strips cover the holes and quills. This is both a practical solution so a person doesn't always have plastic showing on their back, but it also adds an element of surprise when the quills pop out from underneath.

Product

Do you ever get so angry you feel like you want to explode? Is the person you're talking to just not getting the hint, or did that stranger just stand way too close to you on the bus? Quillted Sweater lets you fuel your rage into dozens of quills that shoot out from your back when clenching your fists just isn't enough.

My sweatshirt has a series of inflatable quills hidden along the back. A small fan, micro-controller, and portable power source are sewn into the base underneath the quills. Tubing stitched between the main layers of the sweatshirt connect the fan to each of the quills. Inside the sleeves at the palm of each hand, a pressure sensor is in communication with the micro-controller to turn the fan on. The quills will inflate and shoot out from a person's back only when the correct amount of pressure is applied to both sleeves. 

Reflection

Through designing this project I learned a lot about what sort of considerations need to be taken when applying inflatables to a garment: how the inflatables attach to the fabric, the construction of the garment such that a person doesn't have plastic or tubing always on display, and most importantly- how the inflatables inflate. It would be really interesting to make all ten of the quills and their tube connections to see how feasible attaching that many tubes to a fan would be. I feel as though it might be too many to work, and more thought would have to be given to their organization. A potential solution could be using flow ports to branch off from a smaller number of tubes connecting directly to the fan.

Additionally, after making the prototype quill out of plastic, I learned that coated fabrics exist! The coating allows for the fabric to be heat seamed. In the next iteration of this project the quills can be made directly out of fabric instead of requiring a second layer to hide the plastic.

Sample Book

Below are images and videos of the samples made during each class.