Embroidered Inflatables: Exploring Sample Making in Research through Design

This paper reflects on the experience of sample making to develop interactive materials. Sample making is a way to explore possibilities related to different materials techniques. In recent years design research has put an increasing emphasis on making as a mode of exploration, which in turn has made such exploration an increasingly popular and effective design research approach. However, sample making is a messy and complex process that is hard to document and communicate. To mitigate this, design researchers typically report their journeys from the perspective of their success, retroactively editing out or reducing the accounts of experiments that did not directly contribute to their goal. Although it is a useful way to of contextualizing a design process, it can contribute to a loss of richness and complexity of the work done along the way. Samples can be seen as instantiations of socio-techno systems of production, which means that they can be looked at from different perspectives and can potentially become the starting points of new design explorations. In recognition of this quality, we aim to investigate ways that samples can be appropriated in future journeys. To do so, we analyzed and reflected on the sample making process of the Embroidered Inflatables as a design case. The project resulted in 27 samples that explored distinct challenges related to designing actuators for soft wearables through the combination of silicone casting and embroidery techniques. To explore the potential of sample appropriation, we invited a fashion designer to a creative session that analyzed these samples from her personal perspective to identify new design directions. We detail the design process, reflect on our sample making experience and present strategies to support us in the process of reevaluating and appropriating samples

Inflatable actuators based on machine embroidery

The growing interest in wearable technologies has prompted the development of new techniques for integrating electronics into garments, and more specifically to overcome the challenges interfacing hard and soft components. In comparison to sensors and leads, the textile-based or integrated solutions for actuation remain underexplored. Approaching materials as extensions of actuators, we investigate machine embroidery as means to integrate silicone-based inflatables into garments. Following a research through design methodology, we created inflatables whose design and behavior are determined by machine embroidered substrates. Our iterative process resulted in 24 samples, divided in five series, exploring distinct challenges: 1) sewing attributes to create properties of inflatables; 2) fit & support; 3) improving integration & resolution of complex shapes; 4) enlarging area of actuation; and 5) textile integration. We discuss the impact of different parameters to the fabrication and the interaction possibilities of soft actuators. We show how machine embroidery allows shifting the complexity of the designs away from the casting process, simplifying fabrication, while enabling the creation of a wide range of shapes and behaviors through layering of textile structures. Our work extends the possibilities of integrating different technologies into garments through a single manufacturing process. We contribute with the detailed description of our design process and reflections on designing inflatables by means of machine embroidery

Flow: towards communicating directional cues through inflatables

Current research in wearable technologies have shown that we can use real-time tactile instructions to support the learning of physical activities through vibrotactile stimulation. While tactile cues based on vibration may indicate direction, they do not convey the direction of movement. We would like to propose the use of inflatables as an alternative form of actuation to express such information through pressure. Inspired by notions from embodied interaction and somaesthetic design, we present in this paper a research through design (RtD) project that substitutes directional metaphors with push against the body. The result, Flow, is a wearable designed to cue six movements of the wrist/forearm to support the training of elementary sensory-motor skills of physical activities, such as foil fencing. We contribute with the description of the design process and reflections on how to design for tactile motion instructions through inflatables

Fabrication files and documentation about the Embroidered Inflatables Sample Series

This dataset is a compilation of files related to the Embroidered Inflatable samples. The Embroidery Inflatables were created throug a material-driven process that aimed to explore the implications of using digital machine embroidery to create soft actuators for wearable or other textile-based applications. These inflatables are created through the combination of embroidery and silicone casting. The embroidery defines the shape and behavior of the inflatables, removing the complexity from the mold and casting process, and increasing the design possibilities. The methods of fabrication described can also support a robust integration of soft electronics and the actuators into textiles through a single fabrication process (embroidery). In this dataset, you can find the documentation of the design process (including techninal specifications and fabrication method for each sample) and the embroidery files (.pes) of the samples. You can use these to reproduce or, better yet, design new interactive materials and soft interfaces based on digital machine embroidery

Becoming travelers: Enabling the material drift

Materially driven research can often feel like a long series of failed experiments, which ends with us telling only the story of how we succeeded. We propose engaging with the making experience as travelers, losing ourselves in the making while preserving the outcomes of each experiment. In doing so, we might be able to, on one hand document this iterative journey as a research outcome in itself and, on the other, identify the roads not travelled as opportunities and starting points for new projects. We present an open ended exploration that led us to articulating the possibilities of becoming travelers in the design process