Jellyfish Dress and Sample Book

This is a conceptual dress that I would like to make for Lunar Gala, utilizing the skills I've learned in the E-textiles micro.

The movement of jellyfish is both fascinating and relaxing to me. When we worked with muscle wire, we were shown a fabric sample with muscle wire sewn in which expanded and contracted longitudinally much like a worm does when it moves. If this movement was applied vertically onto a voluminous skirt, I think it would beautifully mimic the movement of a jellyfish.   

The skirt would be made of a gauzy fabric -- perhaps chiffon -- to evoke an ethereal sense that the movement of jellyfish bring to me. With pulses of power to the muscle wire, the skirt would contract up and down in the way a jellyfish does when it moves. There would be ragged strips of more gauzy fabric hanging from the edge of the skirt dusting the floor in the skirt's relaxed position, which would ideally billow up and slightly out when the muscle wire contracts as the model is walking down the runway. Each contraction would shorten the skirt enough to see a peek of the model's shoes as she's walking.

Reflection

I think I would have to delve a little deeper into Arduino to send pulses to the muscle wire as the model is walking onstage because I've thus far only done it manually. I would also like to do trial and error with how the muscle wire is attached to the fabric since it's pricey and I would want to make the most efficient jellyfish-like movements with the minimum amount of muscle wire necessary.

Overall this class was fun and I learned a lot about different e-textile forms and about how they are incorporated into functional art and general art forms. These are cool ways to add functions to my mechanical engineering projects without traditional mechanisms I would learn in my engineering classes. I especially love the muscle wire because it facilitates movement without any actuators.

Sample 1: Conductive pad and LEDs connected to a Gemma which flashes different colors when the pad is touched.

Sample 2: EL wire soldered together. Unfortunately the connections to the red wire worked initially but broke in transit home :( definitely means my solder connections weren't solid enough

Sample 3: Muscle wire in fabric. I connected the wire in a loop so when heated it raises itself and crumples together.