Meta-morphosis

by André Aymonod, Ioannis Moutevelis, Esra Yaman

The project was conducted as a part of the Computational Design and Digital Fabrication Seminar in the International Master of Science Programme: ITECH

Introduction

Meta-morphosis is a shape changing dress that can fold and stretch into the size you desire, With all control one touch away!

Better yet it detects the temperature for you and decides if you need a shorter dress for the burning summer days.

• Long loose dress
• One belt (a not expensive one and preferable not a leather one because it will be destroyed)
• 20 eyelets with washers (We used the 4mm diameter but it’s up to the designer!)
• 2m of fishing line (It depends on the length of the dress and the height of the belt)
• 1 Arduino Nano
• 1 9V battery
• 1 breadboard from arduino kit
• 1 mini breadboard
• 1 touch sensor
• 1 temperature sensor [TMP36 Analog sensor]
• 1 or 2 Hobby Gearmotor ( in this project we used only one but it’s up to you)
• 1 H-bridge Motor Driver
• 1 100 nF Capacitor
• Plenty of wires
• Plastic Glue
• A model for your new dress!

Arduino:

How to sensing when it needs to go up/down and how to control it? We started thinking when the temperature is high the dress needs to go up and when the temperature is lower the dress should unfold. In addition to the temperature the user can have control over the dress by touching a sensor and control how long the dress should be.

Basically, the two sensors are working at the same time and the touch will overwrite the temperature. While the user touch the sensor the dress go up or down. After each touch, the dress will move in the opposite direction. For the temperature, we specified a room temperature around 23°C. When the temperature is over 8 degrees from the given temperature, the motor will be activated and will start pulling the dress up. Because of the sensitivity and the poor quality of the temperature sensor as well as the difference of the temperature, it is necessary to run some tests and change the “starting” temperature or the degrees you need to get in order for the motor to start working. When changing the code, or working step by step, don't forget to keep testing the code and the sensitivity of the sensors to different resistors, cables etc. You can always check the values you receive through arduino to understand which values are working for you.

1. Make some test printings to see that everything fits perfectly in the cases;
2. Let the 3d printer do his job (needs around 7 hours for a draft-medium quality);
3. While waiting you can continue with the hardware or watch a movie (up to you);
4. Glue the cases with the belt hangers and insert all the hardware;
5. After having everything prepared and glued, you can start preparing the wiring that will connect the hardware, the motor, the battery and the sensors. We selected to have all the wires from the interior side of the belt, so we specify the position of every component and we marked the places where the cables needs to come out and connect with the hardware. After connecting the wires the belt is ready and we have to move to the dress. Small adjustments are easy to make and we will adjust everything when the dress is ready.

1) First step is to prepare the tools we need for the dress:

• 1 Long loose dress;
• 1 Eyelets with washers kit (it should include both the tool to make the holes + the eyelets with washers). We used the 4mm diameter but it’s up to the designer!);
• 2 m of fishing line (It depends on the length of the dress and the height of the belt);
• 1 Ruler;
• 1 pen or pencil;
• 1 Scissor;
• 1 Hummer;
• 1 Sewing needle (not mandatory because the holes are large enough).

2) Now is time to open some small holes in order to pass the fishing line and control the height of the dress; for that we specify the number of holes we want. In our dress we used 5 passes in each side of the cut of the dress. We have two more holes at the top part to connect the lines to the motor and two more at the bottom part of the dress in order to secure the fishing line and add a bit of weight. So, we measure the distance of the holes, but this it depends on the dress and size and can be set arbitrary.

3) We used the eyelets to make the holes and we used pairs of holes in order to keep the fishing line hidden on the interior of the dress while at the same time achieving a nice folding pattern. (it’s up to you to create different patterns for the folding of the dress).

So, with the tool included in the Eyelets with washers kit and an hummer, we pierced the fabric in correspondence with the holes. (If you don't have the specific tool to cut the fabric, you can also use simple scissors)

4) After getting the holes it's time to positioning the eyelets with washers.

5) With the hummer we should fix the eyelets with washers.

6) For the tested T-shirt it was necessary to make 2 cuts at the sides just to demonstrate in a better way the folding pattern.

7) At this point we have to pass the fishing line through the holes (to facilitate you can help yourself with a sewing needle).

8) In order to secure the fishing line at the bottom part you should put something a bit bigger than the hole size and heavy.

9) Then we hold the fishing line from the top part and by pulling it we see the folding simulation!!!

10) Now it's time to connect the fishing line at the top in order to attach it to the gearmotor.

11) Finally we combine the selected long loose dress with the belt.

Enjoy your new dress!!