We control most of our gadgets through screens and buttons. And while these interfaces get the job done, they can lack a certain warmth and humanness. A new project from Royal College of Art student Yen Chen Chang explores what happens when you replace glass, metal and plastic with textile control mechanisms. The result? A totally new way to interact with our everyday devices.
Using conductive yarn made from 80 percent polyester and 20 percent stainless steel (similar to the textile used in smartphone gloves), Chang knit and crocheted a series of objects that control devices by pulling, squeezing and stroking. When manipulated, the overlap of the metal fiber causes the textile to change conductivity which is then measured by an Arduino and communicated to the gadgets.
For example, Chang developed the Squeezy Juicer, a juicer that only works when you squeeze an oversized knit ball between two people. The faster you squish the ball, the quicker you'll have your orange juice. There’s also the Touch of Breeze, a fan that starts to blow air as soon as you stroke a knitted patch of carpet. The more pressure you apply, the faster the air flows. The most straightforward of the objects is Chang's Tension Lamp, which uses a dangling knit rope as the lamp’s dimmer.
The outcomes are familiar—a light turns on, a fan blows air, a juicer juices—but the means of getting there is novel. “When you integrate different sensing technology into today’s electronics, you can make something look totally different,” he says.
The objects’ sensitivity to change in conductivity depends on how the textiles are constructed. A knit, which is looser because of its looping, is better suited for stretching and squashing. This gives objects a bigger range of motion. While something like a weave, which Chang used to produce a set of conductive gloves, means the fibers are much tighter together, ultimately limiting the range of resistance and giving the textile a more precise function. “You could use it as an on or off switch,” he says.
There’s obviously little value in replacing our juicers with an oversized knit ball, but Chang says practicality—at least at this point–isn’t the purpose of the project. Instead, he adds, this is simply an investigation into how changing our material can impact the way we interact with our devices.“I’m not saying it’s going to totally revolutionize already existing technology,” he says. "But it’s something that’s completely refreshing; it's inspiring in a way."