Wearable elctronics and Molding and Casting

This week we learned about Wearable electronics and integrating fabriccs and textiles into our digital fabrication projects. SPecifically we worked with actuators that wear researched by researchers at the WYSS Institute. The primary actuator of our focus was a blatter inside a two part textile one side stiff and the other side extremely flexible it allows for expansion one way but not the other.

After this we took a brief look at molding and casting which was very interesting. Tomorrow I plan to mold and cast my own army of storm troopers. For molding and casting you will need: - molding material - casting material - a positive object(3d object) - a few dixie cups or containers - a stirring rod First you will mix the silicon molding material and/ or make a structure to put your positive on while modling which is big enough for liquid cast to move through when you make a second positive object or replica.

Next pour your silicon around your object slowly, until all of the object is submerged into the silicon.

After this you should let your silicon mold cure for however long the instructions for your silicon say (in my case it took 1 hour). After this you can take your object out of the mold by whatever means possible but try to keep the mold in as few pieces as possible. In my case the stormtrooper I molded has an extremely large head so that didn't turn out very well.

Now mix your casting material and pour into the mold you have made and let that rest!

There you have it! I highly recommend supergluing the largest surface of your positive object to the bottom of whatever container you are using!!!It allows for a larger hole to pour cast into and more area for air to escape.

ACTUATOR making!!

Also today I made a air filled two piece cloth and blatter actuator which uses the elasticity of one material and the stiffness of another to curve around objects! My objective was to create a t-rex arm that could grasp things without any hard objects. In short, it failed; however, there is a ton to learn from this failure. First if you want only one part of your actuator to bend then only use elastic material on that part of the actuator! Don't make the entire side of an actuator elastic if you want only the finger to bend. Also make the blatter have a larger linear area than the cloth (longer is better than wider).