Leah Buechley

The LilyPad Arduino: using computational textiles to investigate engagement, aesthetics, and diversity in computer science education

The advent of novel materials (such as conductive fibers) combined with accessible embedded computing platforms have made it possible to re-imagine the landscapes of fabric and electronic crafts--extending these landscapes with the creative range of electronic/computational textiles or e-textiles. This paper describes the LilyPad Arduino, a fabric-based construction kit that enables novices to design and build their own soft wearables and other textile artifacts. The kit consists of a microcontroller and an assortment of sensors and actuators in stitch-able packages; these elements can be sewn to cloth substrates and each other with conductive thread to build e-textiles. This paper will introduce the latest version of the kit; reflect on its affordances; present the results of our most recent user studies; and discuss possible directions for future work in the area of personalized e-textile design and its relation to technology education.

Fabric PCBs, electronic sequins, and socket buttons: techniques for e-textile craft

The blossoming research field of electronic textiles (or e-textiles) seeks to integrate ubiquitous electronic and computational elements into fabric. This paper concerns one of the most challenging aspects of the design and construction of e-textile prototypes: namely, engineering the attachment of traditional hardware components to textiles. We present three new techniques for attaching off-the-shelf electrical hardware to e-textiles: (a) the design of fabric PCBs or iron-on circuits to attach electronics directly to a fabric substrate; (b) the use of electronic sequins to create wearable displays and other artifacts; and (c) the use of socket buttons to facilitate connecting pluggable devices to textiles. In this work we have focused on using easily obtained materials and developing user-friendly techniques; our aim is to develop methods that will make e-textile technology available to crafters, students, and hobbyists. This paper describes the techniques and employs them as a springboard for a wider-ranging discussion of “e-textile craft”.

The LilyPad Arduino: Toward Wearable Engineering for Everyone

Electronic textiles, or e-textiles, are an increasingly important part of wearable computing, helping to make pervasive devices truly wearable. These soft, fabric-based computers can function as lovely embodiments of Mark Weisers vision of ubiquitous computing: providing useful functionality while disappearing discreetly into the fabric of our clothing. E-textiles also give new, expressive materials to fashion designers, textile designers, and artists, and garments stemming from these disciplines usually employ technology in visible and dramatic style. Integrating computer science, electrical engineering, textile design, and fashion design, e-textiles cross unusual boundaries, appeal to a broad spectrum of people, and provide novel opportunities for creative experimentation both in engineering and design. Moreover, e-textiles are cutting- edge technologies that capture peoples imagination in unusual ways. (What other emerging pervasive technology has Vogue magazine featured?) Our work aims to capitalize on these unique features by providing a toolkit that empowers novices to design, engineer, and build their own e-textiles.

LilyPad in the wild: how hardware's long tail is supporting new engineering and design communities

This paper examines the distribution, adoption, and evolution of an open-source toolkit we developed called the LilyPad Arduino. We track the two-year history of the kit and its user community from the time the kit was commercially introduced, in October of 2007, to November of 2009. Using sales data, publicly available project documentation and surveys, we explore the relationship between the LilyPad and its adopters. We investigate the community of developers who has adopted the kit---paying special attention to gender---explore what people are building with it, describe how user feedback impacted the development of the kit and examine how and why people are contributing their own LilyPad-inspired tools back to the community. What emerges is a portrait of a new technology and a new engineering/design community in co-evolution.

Electronic popables: exploring paper-based computing through an interactive pop-up book

We have developed an interactive pop-up book called Electronic Popables to explore paper-based computing. Our book integrates traditional pop-up mechanisms with thin, flexible, paper-based electronics and the result is an artifact that looks and functions much like an ordinary pop-up, but has added elements of dynamic interactivity. This paper introduces the book and, through it, a library of paper-based sensors and a suite of paper-electronics construction techniques. We also reflect on the unique and under-explored opportunities that arise from combining material experimentation, artistic design, and engineering.

Crafting technology: Reimagining the processes, materials, and cultures of electronics

This article examines the practice of electronics building in the context of other crafts. We compare the experience of making electronics with the experiences of carving, sewing, and painting. Our investigation is grounded in a survey of 40 practicing craftspeople who are working in each of these disciplines. We then use this survey as a foundation for a discussion of hybrid craft—integrations of electronics with carving, sewing, and painting. We present examples of hybrid craft and discuss the ways in which blended practices can enrich and diversify technology.

Handcrafting textile interfaces from a kit-of-no-parts

This paper explores the idea of handcrafted electronics. We introduce a kit-of-no-parts approach to building electronics from a diverse palette of craft materials, which we argue is more personal, understandable and accessible than the construction of technology from a kit of pre-determined components. We illustrate our approach by describing the design, construction, and dissemination of a collection of textile sensors, and detailing a website and a series of workshops through which we share our approach.

DIY for CHI: methods, communities, and values of reuse and customization

People tinker, hack, fix, reuse, and assemble materials in creative and unexpected ways, often codifying and sharing their production process with others. Do-it-yourself (DIY) encompasses a range of design activities that have become increasingly prominent in online discussion forums and blogs, in addition to a small-but-growing presence in professional/research forums such as CHI. This workshop will explore DIY practice from the ground up--examining DIY as a set of methods, communities, values and goals and examining its impact in the domains of traditional crafts, technology development, and sustainable design.

Electronic/computational textiles and children's crafts

An astonishing array of new technologies is currently effecting a revolution in the professional design of textile artifacts. This integration of electronics and computation into textiles likewise suggests new directions in the practice of childrens crafts. In this paper, we present a classification scheme that we believe will prove useful in structuring exploration and discussion of new directions in childrens textile-based crafts. Within the context of this classification scheme, we describe several projects in our lab (along with early pilot-testing efforts) that offer examples of how children can work with computationally enriched textiles. We conclude by describing several extremely exciting-but nonetheless plausible-scenarios for continued work in this area.

Sketching in circuits: designing and building electronics on paper

The field of new methods and techniques for building electronics is quickly growing - from research in new materials for circuit building, to modular toolkits, and more recently to untoolkits, which aim to incorporate more off-the-shelf parts. However, the standard mediums for circuit design and construction remain the breadboard, protoboard, and printed circuit board (PCB). As an alternative, we introduce a method in which circuits are hand-made on ordinary paper substrates, connected with conductive foil tape and off-the-shelf circuit components with the aim of supporting the durability, scalability, and accessibility needs of novice and expert circuit builders alike. We also used electrified notebooks to investigate how the circuit design and build process would be affected by the constraints and affordances of the bound book. Our ideas and techniques were evaluated through a series of workshops, through which we found our methods supported a wide variety of approaches and results - both technical and expressive - to electronics design and construction.