Lit Lehenga

Individual: Jessica Fernandes

What is it:

The structure of this project is a lehenga, an Indian cultural skirt worn by women for traditional events and celebrations. This piece incorporates cultural textiles and light components to create the illusion of a cloud of light, celebrating and honoring the experience of growing up as a first generation, Indian American.

What it does:

The garment illuminates to create the impression of airy color diffusion. Light sensors trigger the LEDs to turn on in a certain level of darkness and can also be controlled by a switch embedded in the structure of the garment.

Who it’s for:

This garment is designed to be a statement piece for Indian women in search of unique, traditional clothing for Diwali (the festival of lights), among other cultural events.

How it’s used:

To activate the garment, the user would simply wear the skirt and turn on the light sensor that will trigger the lights to turn on. This switch is discretely integrated into the waist for ease of use. The power source will also be embedded in the structure of the skirt and will need to be charged when not in use.

How it’s unique:

Because the piece illuminates in darkness, it creates a moment of fantasy for the wearer. This is especially fitting for celebrations like Diwali.

Inspiration & Sketch

Lehengas and dress with lights

Materials

End-emitting fiber optic fibers
Side-emitting fibers or fiber optic fabric
LEDs
Light sensors
Micro-controller
Power source
Super glue/glue gun
Fabric/(conductive) thread

Skills

Sewing/embroidery
Programming
Soldering

Timeline

Milestone 1 (March 25)

Darkness triggers the light sensor to turn on the other lights.

Milestone 2 (April 8)

Network of lights and sensors function in a form that can be draped onto the garment.

Milestone 3 (April 22)

The sensors, lights, and power source function and are integrated into the garment in an aesthetically pleasing finish.

Fallback Plan

If the initial plan does not succeed, I will adjust the features implemented based on what will accomplished the best functionality. This means potentially reducing the number of lights incorporated or changing the type of power source or changing the triggering of lights from sensors to a switch. These adjustments aim to simplify or bridge problems of functionality with more direct solutions.

March 4, 2019

Project Post #1

Project title: Qi jeans

What should we call your project? Qi Jeans

Who you are (are you an individual, a team, etc)? By Gregg Van Dycke

A description of what you would like to create.

I would like to create a pair of jeans that allow you wirelessly charge your phone from your the pocket.

1) What does your project do? (1-2 sentences)

My project is to have a pair of jeans that is capable of charging your phone wirelessly while it is in the pocket.
2) Who is your project for? (1-2 sentences)

My project is for people that are looking to increase their phones battery life. While still allowing them to be flexible in there day to day activities.

3) Describe how someone would use the developed device. What are the steps that a user would go through to interface with the technology? (at least a paragraph)
To use the device the user will first need a smartphone that is wireless charging capable. Second the user will need to to charge the device so I can supply their phone with battery. Next the user will insert the device in their jeans, in the special holder pocket and make sure the transmitter is facing their normal pants pocket. Then the user would put their phone in their pocket with the backside of the phone facing the transmitter.
4) What makes your project different from existing products? (2-4 sentences)

My project is different from other products because it is removable where others are not. Also it is in a pair of pants, while most others are in jackets. Also it uses wireless charging while existing products use a cable.
What is already out there that is similar to what you are trying to do?

Nokia actually did something exactly like this which I just recently saw. They disassembled one of these wireless charges and integrated it into a pair of pants. That might also be the best option for me. But there are other types of clothing that can recharge electronic devices, although they have different form factors or use a different form of charging.

Digital or scanned sketches of your project

A bulleted list of the materials/tools you’ll use/need

Qi wireless transmitter
2x charger/ battery boosters
2x batteries 1000mah
Cloth to make a new jean pocket
A battery bank with wireless charger built in

Milestone 0 (March 15): Have received all bought materials

Milestone 1 (March 25): Have a working transmitter from materials purchased.

Milestone 2 (April 8): Have jeans pocket built with package functioning outside of pants.

Milestone 3 (April 18): Have everything integrated in pants.

Milestone 3 (April 22): Have fully functioning unit.

What can you do to recover your project if it doesn’t go as planned? To use an already built wireless charger that sits in the pants where the custom made transmitter would have gone. This would still allow for wireless charging which is a key component but it will also allow me to work on the jeans portion as well.
What is the bare minimal outcome that you would consider a success? To have a functioning charging unit that can be used outside the pants. Or to have the pants pocket sewn with correct pocket size so that phone sits where it needs to be.

February 26, 2019

Pitch

February 18, 2019February 18, 2019

Adversarial Temporary Tattoo – John Compas

Adversarial Temporary Tattoo

Fooling AI for the price of a sticker

John Compas

Abstract

Researchers have consistently demonstrated over the past three or four years that image and facial recognition techniques are highly susceptible to attack. Many are not designed to be robust in such a manner, making them vulnerable. I aim to create temporary tattoos or other articles of clothing that can disguise the wearer from facial or object recognition. Potentially, this tattoo could not only obscure the wearer but force the AI to classify them as a different person or object.

Technical Details

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon showed two years ago that it was possible to create psychedelic looking glasses that could massively impact how that person’s face was classified by AI [1]. Since then a number of different studies have had similar success attacking classifiers using a variety of techniques. An open source project dedicated to this idea, CVDazzle, has produced many “anti faces” to conceal the wearer. However, both Carnegie Mellon and CVDazzle’s techniques are relatively human obvious. I aim to create a temporary tattoo while looking “normal” has slight, human undetectable modifications that obfuscate the user’s face or body to image detection algorithms. This has been done by [2] although solely on a pixel-by-pixel basis and not in the real world.

[3] Turning a banana into a toaster

A team at Google found that a small patch, applied near an object, could disrupt image classifiers. Many of these techniques counted on access to the internal workings of the classification algorithm to work, however. In [4] a team from MIT showed that a “black box” approach to attack Google’s Cloud Vision. With an evolutionary algorithm, they were able to reduce the time taken to obfuscate an image by multiple orders of magnitude. Using a combination of the aforementioned techniques, I would aim to create patterns for temporary tattoos. Ultimately, the goal would be a tattoo that would be innocuous to humans, yet potent to a classification algorithm.

An example: what you see, what Google’s Cloud Vision or FaceID sees

Actually fabricating the tattoos would be trivial. Tattoo paper is cheap and widely available for use with color printers. Likely the most challenging aspect of the project would be to translate simulated pattern success into a real-world demonstration where the lighting and shadows are inconsistent.

Potentially, other objects and fabrics could be demonstrated, but their fabrication is more challenging.

Goals

The purpose of this project is more experimental. Attempts will be made to make these tattoos look normal, but the main purpose will be to successfully attack commercial face recognition technology.

Applications

The implications of this technology, if successful, are widespread. By simply concealing a wearer’s face, security technology at airports and face-ID technology in large cities like London or New York could be massively compromised for little investment.

If fooling a classifier into recognizing you as a different person is also possible, a whole host of new vulnerabilities are exposed. For example, if Apple’s face ID can be exploited, phones and iPads would instantly be vulnerable.

Confident Skills:

Programming (variety of languages)

Hardware Design, PCB Layout

3D Printing

Laser Cutting

Not Confident:

Sewing

Clothing Design

References

[1] https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sbhagava/papers/face-rec-ccs16.pdf

[2] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.04779.pdf

[3] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.09665.pdf

[4] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.07113.pdf

February 18, 2019

Experimental Materials Development

Michael Sachen

(1) Hypar Pleating

What would one need to accomplish this?

I have- Sewing and Pleating experience

We need- Chemistry skills, i.e. how can we isolate the active ingredient in hair perm product or similar chemicals to permanently set pleats?

What if it doesn’t work? Polyester!

(2) Experimental Dyes

(a) Metal Deposition

By making a soluble metal solution, make it possible to embed metal into fabrics… Who knows the uses?

Fabric that rusts?

Metal color dyes?

What I have- Dye knowledge

What I don’t have- Deep knowledge on metals

Bacteria Dye

Chromatophores, Carotenoids, and Chlorophyll Variants, and PH variation..

Work has been done in this area, but aim to create a semi exhausted attempt to catalog the process of Bacteria dye. What variants change the color and properties of the bacterial dye

February 18, 2019February 19, 2019

Initial Project Pitch – Sungjin Park

Sungjin Park

Project Description

My initial project idea is to make wearable glove that measures heart rate. My primary goal is to hide wires and sensors underneath the outer thread by making double layers of wools in the back of the glove. For better movement and stable functionality, positioning Arduino would be a key concern for this project. Since this project is meant to be pragmatic, subtle design would be a crucial part when implementing wires and sensors. My target potential wearers are people with high blood pressures and athletes so they can check their heart rate at any time. The most challenging part will be a choice of material. Since my target wearers vary in activities, I have to find proper material that falls between wool and spandex for both daily use and active use purpose.

Confident skill set

Programming

Weak skill set

Designing, stitching, and manipulating hardware

Function

It will transmit wearers’ heart rate to their phone consistently and measure hourly peak and low point recorded just like built-in pedometer in iphone.

Concept art

February 18, 2019February 18, 2019

Project Pitch – Vedant

Project Description:

For the final class project, I would like to make smart gloves that helps the user send remote signals using hand gestures as commands. While these gloves could have many functions, I would like to focus on using these gloves as part of a smart home, including functions like controlling the TV, smart lights, as well as a Google Home/Alexa (through a speaker). This could especially be useful for people with disabilities, or even just a very lazy person.

While there are many similar kinds of gloves that exist as projects, a lot of those gloves do not make use of the wide variety of sensors available in the market. Additionally, some of the projects seemed to be made inefficiently in that they seemed to be pretty bulky for how much they can do. I want to explore how those existing gloves could be improved in not just functionality but also aesthetics. Thus, I would work on this project not as an invention, but rather a demonstration/experiment.

The functionality of the glove would include things like a force sensitive/capacitive touch option where a user could clap to turn on/off lights, as well as gesture-controlled commands that can control TV functions.

Sketch:

Inspirations:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOb07ZfrYUk

http://maestroglove.com/

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6629884

Materials/Tools:

Gloves

Sensors: flex sensor, gyroscope, capacitive touch/force sensors

Infrared LED emitter/receiver

Microcontroller- adafruit flora, particle photon, arduino

Possible 3d printed housings/case for the electronics

Skills/concepts

While I have some experience with programming, this project would require a lot of microcontroller programming, so that would be the main thing I would have to master. The project would also require some knowledge of IoT so I would be looking more into that as well.

Additionally, I have experience using tools in the makerspace (3d printing, laser cutting), so if I have time to focus on the aesthetics, I could use those skills to help me improve the looks. However, it is a given that I will also have to learn soldering well to compact my design, as well as sewing to make the glove look nice.

Timeline

March 16: The sensor inputs can be used to output various signals to the devices

April 4: The sensors are integrated into a glove

April 20: The glove is a lot sleeker than the first prototype, and improvement in error reduction

February 18, 2019

Project pitch

Wireless charging jeans pocket

Gregg Van Dycke

The problem I am trying to solve is the having to stop your day to charge your phone. With phones being more and more powerful and batteries still being a last consideration in phone design. Heavy users often have to recharge their phone at least once per day. That can be a hassle, and you oftentimes have to carry a separate charger around.
The project is meant to be both experimental as well as playful. It will be interesting to see the feasibility of having a wireless charging in one’s pocket in terms of comfort as well as effectiveness.
The potential consumer for this product will be someone that is busy and is not able to sit around and wait for their phone to charge. Or someone that is a heavy phone user that is looking to extend their phones battery life without having to connect it with a cable or set it down to charge a standard wireless charger.

Some aspects of the project that I am confident in are any programming or data collection. I am also some what confident in getting hardware to work together.

Some aspects of the project that I have less skills in are sewing and handling different materials. and making it look good. I am not as confident in soldering or advanced electrical circuits.

February 17, 2019

My idea for a wearable tech project is a mobile game with a wearable component and plushies. The intent of this project is to create a game with wearable tech with dirt-cheap wearable tech components that can be given away practically for free.

The main summary of the game is that users find and collect animals in their game by going to locations with the plushies and scanning their pendants against the plushie’s body to unlock that animal in their game.

This idea can be broken down into 3 components, each of which is considered a milestone:

The Mobile App
1. The game itself will be free-to-download and will not require any wearable tech (although, most of the fun comes in owning the subsequent wearable tech products). The game features the user having a collection of pets which they send on missions throughout the day. Each mission lasts a few hours, the player receives updates on what their pet is doing (“playing in a puddle, swinging across a rickity bridge, etc.), and once the pet completes their mission they earn some experience points and some small in-game reward (an apple, a trinket, etc.).
The Animal Pendants
1. Animal Pendants are wearable components of the game. Each pendant holds within it an RFID/NFC tag which contains a unique scannable number associated with its owner. The pendant is used to collect more animals. Because the hardware within the pendant is cheap ($1-2), small (around 1cm), and flexible, pendants can resemble anything ranging from necklaces to earrings to clip-on gadgets. Animal pendants are mainly stylized based on the animal designs and symbols created for the game.
The Animal Plushies
1. The animal plushies are stuffed animals that resemble animals that can be found in the game. Each of these animals has a RaspberryPI 0 W, an RFID/NFC reader/writer, and a battery within it. When a player scans their pendant against a plushie, they receive that animal in their game and can use that animal for adventuring in the gameplay. Each animal plushie costs around $15 in hardware (excluding cost of fabric/stuffing), and the intent is to market these towards small businesses, museums, libraries and other areas to draw in crowds.

Below are some mockups for the game’s UI and some ideas for the plushie designs. The two plushie ideas that people seemed to really like were a Sheep and an Otter, although close runner-ups were a Corgi and “A Loaf Of Cat”

I feel fairly confident in building the mobile app, and feel as though the hardware components will be rather easy to setup once I have one working model.

I feel like I could use some improvement in setting up the networking aspect of this, as well as the plushie designs.