Basic stamp used to process audio. Quilt plays music indigenous to the continent you press.
Property J. Kimel

Visitor with quilt at Demo Day, Georgia Tech, 2003.
Property J. Kimel

Sonic Quilt

So, while I'm at it, I wanted to share my other favorite project. Kevin Stamper and I created an awesome (if i do say so myself), quilt which makes noise. A great first endeavor into fabric and electronics for both of us. The columns represent the 7 continents...fabric in the column is as indigenous as I could find here in the US. The switches that turn on the music are made of metallic organza, based on an original idea by Joey Berzowska. The quilt was supposed to go into a Global Learning Center on the Georgia Tech campus. At the moment, it resides on a hanger in my closet :-( .

Gender

So, I find it a constant source of fascination that 90% of the people involved in Smart Clothing, E-textiles, and other on body "wearables" (NOT the black computer boxes people carry around, but real wearables) are female. It's a fascinating niche for those of us who have a creative side and a logical side. But where did the guys go? I can list a bunch of women off the top of my head in the field: Tunde Kirstein, Lucy Dunne, Maggie Orth, Joey Berzowska, Jill Coffin, Katherine Moriwaki, Megan Galbraith....the more I search, the more women turn up! I guess that's cool. It's a great way for intelligent women to blend their skills. But it sure fascinates me that men's names don't pop up nearly as often as the women.

Men, it seems, are doing the on body wearables---those little (and I use the term loosely as they are darn heavy) black boxes which house a computer and use a screen on your glasses. Men are still ok with carrying around a big black box as a computer, looks like the women still want to make the world a functional, but appealing place!

Get Motivated!

Another part of the project, seen above, is the aspect of motivation. Before you can ever detect feedback the user/patient has to be motivated enough to sit down or simply stop life for a few minutes, and exercise. This takes motivation and discipline. I've put together a power point presentation about motivation and the psychology and philosophy surrounding it. I haven't quite figured out if I can post that here, so you can go to this Georgia Tech website and click on "Get Motivated.ppt", to see the presentation...although it always loses something without a translator there to present it!

Day 1.a

So the real reason for blogging is to get my work out there and for myself and others to be able to track progress. As part of my thesis work at Georgia Tech, I am working on a wearable device to help motivate people to do their physical therapy. The first installation of this includes a knee brace type of device that the wearer dons when doing physical therapy(assuming, at this point, that the affected area is the knee). With some neoprene, Hytrel (thanks to the good folks at DuPont) and electroluminescent strips, I was able to wire up a low tech version to prove this concept.

Final brace, side view with EL strips lit
Property J. Kimel

Final brace, front view with EL strips lit
Property J. Kimel

Day 1

Well, I've seen a lot of blogs out there. They seem to be a great way to share information. So, I'm starting one of my own. It's faster than redoing my website, and fellow students and colleagues can share information here more easily. I hope to have a compendium of information on wearables in the not too distant future.

Favorite and useful sites of the moment.

we-make-money-not-art.com
MIT Media Lab Wearables site
Half Baked