I’m inspired by the speakers at Textile Messages earlier tonight, an event about e-textiles organized by Yasmin Kafai at UPenn. One of the speakers, Leah Buechley, developer of the Lilypad Arduino, is also speaking tomorrow at a UArts/Hive76 event that I wish I could make it to. The Lilypad took the Arduino idea and put it in a sewable form that gave e-textiles a big kick in the pants. E-textiles or soft circuits are exciting for a lot a reasons that deserve their own exploration, but suffice it to say that what gets me gesticulating excitedly is the idea of mashing up different audiences with fluency in different technologies. Putting electronics in crafts/clothing/sewing gives it a new accessibility, and gives it access to new creative thinkers. By clearing a path for crafters and sewers to start thinking about conductivity and sensors, soft circuits make space for electronics (especially … Read the rest
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