Speaker:

Making – Become a Maker with open source software

The aim of my presentation is to talk about my inspiration of the maker scene and to showcase my project I developed in an open source environment. I created a dress with LEDs soldered onto the fabric building a special compound and a flexible circuit. The layout has been done with graphical open software like inkscape and gimp and is then printed with conductive ink to the fabric. I used Arduino software and microcontroller for making smart clothes to include LEDs and Accelerometer.

The created pattern work can be used either for fabric printing, laser cutting or even for sending to a hacked knitting machine to get an individual, customized style, fulfilling the aim that we can download and print clothes to start our own production. The creative culture and the use of free formats make it usable for further development. Tinkering in an open digital fabrication studio e.g. Fablab.

I plan to prepare a library of design content such as pattern printing, swatches pattern work, accessible under cc licensing.

To participate, exchange, explore, cooperate and show contribution, free access of knowledge is important. Therefore we share skills and knowledge in the community e.g. by launching The Fashion Tec Group where people come to present their projects.

Also different ideas have been presented at Meshcon and Wear it Conference and openXlab in Berlin.

Yvonne Micklich

I studied Product Development in Clothing and come from a classical fashion background. I worked for a clothing company. In 2009, I start to explore new Technology including LEDs in cloth, but it was not so easy to get a lot of information about it. During my research, especially the big Designers were at the forefront to market new Technology features. Although, there were only prototypes or couture pieces, they showed something new. Now, a lot of knowledge has been shared and during the codemotion in Berlin, I attended a workshop to learn about Arduino programming. Since then, I improved my skills in creative coding and eTextile. Also, I am part of the Fashion Tec Working group in Berlin to build a community of people to share their knowledge. http://www.meetup.com/FashionTec-Meetup-Berlin/