Hello everyone, I am Sachith
from the Augmented Human Lab
at the University of Auckland, New Zealand
So, here I am excited to present
the ClothTiles at CHI 2021
It is quite interesting that humans have evolved to a point
where they cannot live without wearing clothes from birth anymore
So, at present, a vast number of research is focused on smart clothing
Especially, focused on diverse sensing mechanisms
However, the actuation dimension of clothing has been ignored most of the time
In this work, we present, ClothTiles
A prototyping platform to fabricate customized actuators
on Clothing using 3D Printing and Shape-Memory Alloys
Our main contribution is providing an easily customizable
and versatile fabrication technique
for enabling actuation on textile interfaces
Here we have used commonly available raw materials
such as flexible 3D printing filaments,
SMA wires, and of-course a piece of clothing
This technique basically involves 2 steps
first, we have to print 3D structural elements onto the piece of clothing
Secondly, we integrated an SMA wire into the 3D printed substrate
Here, we demonstrate the concept of clothing actuation
using a fundamental ClothTiles element
Because we have the advantage of having a variable stiffness
we can easily control the thickness of the 3D printed substrates
so in return, this allows us to regulate the actuator’s behavior
We propose five ways to combine the ClothTiles basic elements
to realize different deformation types over an extended area
They are Linear, Perpendicular, Curved,
Circular, and Angular methods
and each aggregation method has its own unique actuation behavior
as you can see here.
Also, we can control the deformation forces
by varying the basic element’s scaling properties
For example, by using width-wise scaling
we can render a more distributed force over a larger area of clothing
In the same way, using the length-wise scaling technique
one can achieve a stronger deformation force that can increase the bending angle
As shown here, you can see how the bending angle of the basic element increases
with the anchor-point length
Also, with different levels of rigidity in the clothing
we can also control diverse actuation levels in terms of displacement
When it comes to the directionality aspects
we propose two placements
where the cloth actuator can be placed.
those are outside and inside of the clothing
In each placement, we identify three directions
along which the cloth actuator can be oriented
Based on each arrangement
several properties of the cloth actuation can be determined
such as the bending direction, visibility to the outside,
and the type of sensation.
We can achieve a unique set of actuation mechanisms
by combining primitive structures that I mentioned before
Figure A on the top left incorporates a linear aggregation mechanism
together with a variable scaling mechanism in a longitudinal direction
This generates a more intense pulling effect
from a specific point on the cloth
Also, if you look at figure B
this actuator allows the clothing surface to deform as a spherical-cap
To observe how users find the ClothTiles
we performed a co-design study with the support of an expert
At first, we interpreted that users would only design functional clothing
but instead, they were mostly concerned about
the aesthetic aspect of the clothing
These are some cool ideas that users came up with
The first one is a face-mask loosener
He had an issue with his face mask generating vapor on his spectacles when breathing
Another participant wanted to integrate a wrist compressor in his workout gloves
to receive subtle notifications while doing exercises
When it comes to aesthetic designs, users came-up with awesome ideas
One of the participants wanted to print a dog
on his t-shirt that can wiggle its tail
Also, another participant wanted to integrate a slight-massager on her eye-mask
and mainly she wanted to retain the aesthetic aspects of that
From the user feedback
we could confirm that ClothTiles potentially can fulfill
both functional as well as aesthetic aspects of clothing up-to user expectations
Also, we developed a set of clothing actuators
to further demonstrate the potential of ClothTiles
for functional and aesthetic clothing applications
and here is my amazing team behind this project
We are Looking forward to future collaborations related to this project
and other projects
you can also check out our websites for more details
So, Feel free to contact us for further discussions
And this is a wrap
I hope you guys enjoyed it
Thank you :)