problem-solving, iteration & creativity: what i learned while making the #tff twitter dress

Liz Neely ‘By day’ work at the Art Institute of Chicago Director of Digital Information and Access

Who am I?

It Begins: MCN2011

Loved the idea…

Create a richer dialogue between digital and physical experiences

Loved the idea… But, Clueless

Winter break electronics crash course with dad

Diving in…

Wanted to make a project that responded to online relationships

Would see my ‘TFFs’ in real life at a conference in April

•  Dress Design, Fit and Sew •  Bird songs Cannibalized greeting cards •  Wings Looked at many a costume

designer videos on YouTube. These wings are not be huge, just a little flutter and hopefully not costume-like

•  Tweet sensor To activate the dress •  Arduino Code Pulls it all together

Work Streams:

Dress

Dress

Dress

•  Test and iterate with cheap fabric •  Try it on, play with it! •  Trace what you like back to paper •  Moment of truth, cutting $ fabric

This process took a long time!

Dress

Bird Songs

Bird Songs

Wings

Wings

Tweet Trigger or ‘Twigger’

? Twitter API with Processing?

Worked, using Twitter 4J. No libraries on iOS Processing!

Xbee to server running API? Complicated, not very portable.

Web site Twitter to serial? Output from iPhone limited

Serious problem..key to whole dress!

Tweet Trigger or ‘Twigger’

? The iPhone can be set to make a sound when tweeted through notifications…

Sound is electricity.. it can be harnessed!

But how?

I called my dad!

Twigger

Enter the LM339 Voltage Comparator

Twigger

Video of test: http://www.twitvid.com/GA8EJ

Voltage switch Attached to Arduino pin set as input

Birds and Servos Set as Arduino output pins

4 AA Batteries One power source for all elements (removed batteries from Birds to simplify circuit)

Arduino Code Watches the input pin and when the switch is closed, the birds sing and then the Servos turn 15 times.

Connecting Electronics

Video of Exploded View

Exploded View http://youtu.be/9hgE9QX2ka8

Arduino Code

Arduino Code

Tweet: @lili_czarina

Video http://youtu.be/hTgIZoAbc94

•  Iterate – Dead ends mean turn around, try again

•  Listen to ideas – Collaboration makes better innovation

•  Problem-solving – Sometimes stepping back is the best way

forward

What I learned

Liz Neely @lili_czarina Instuctables (code in txt): czarina_machina