What is a high-performance material? In this studio, we will look at material performance as a vehicle for design exploration and inquiry.

Looking back at the long and rich history of textiles and aligning it to the latest breakthroughs, we will design innovative applications in which advanced functional fabrics can transform the way we communicate and interact with our environment. 

We will be collaborating with the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America, a non-profit Institute headquartered near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and one of the latest members of the National Network of Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) Institutes. Students will learn about specialized fibers with optoelectronic diodes amongst other leaps in advanced fiber technology.

Advanced Functional Fabrics can see, hear, sense, communicate, store and convert energy, regulate temperature, monitor health and change color- giving us a plethora of options.

Clio - Emissive Clothing is a functional light producing the shirt. The shirt detects one's emotions to provide light when the user is feeling anxious or afraid. The project is for those who feel uncomfortable or unsafe walking at night. The shirt uses Galvanic Skin Sensor to detects changes in the skin activated by the sweat glands. The user can reuse this as a form of protection and assurance.

Emissive clothing - A light producing shirt from LED's impeded into the fabric. The shirt lights up when one starts to sweat. The Galvanic Sensors sewn onto the shirt sense's when one is sweating and that triggers the LED's impeded into the shirt to start glowing. We used AFFOA impeded LED fabric and sewed that onto a basic black t-shirt. We would then sew on LED's to all sides of the shirt , then sew on the galvanic sensor.

Mila-Emissive Clothing is a light-producing the shirt. The shirt detects the wearer's emotions to provide light when the wearer is feeling anxious or afraid. Galvanic skin sensors within the fabric respond to activated swear glands to provide light those running at night.  When the Galvanic sensors feel the active sweat glands and an increase in heart rate, the LED lights that are woven into the fabric activate. The shirt provides an ease of use to the wearer, emitting light by replacing a flashlight. The shirt is powered by kinetic so as you run, that energy powers the LEDs in the shirt. 

The Brief - Part 1 - Outline

As part of your portfolio for each studio, you will be asked to write a Brief for your project. The Brief is a written piece that will accompany your presentation and is a strong narrative that ties together the Why, How and What of your project through clear, cogent writing. It tells the story of how your idea was born, developed, and manifested.

For students at NuVu Cambridge, to help you develop your writing, Rebecca, the NuVu writing coach, will provide feedback throughout the process. Rebecca is a published writer, a professional editor, and a teacher of writing. Her assistance is invaluable in developing your written communication skills. She will expect hard work and thoughtful writing and respond with thorough feedback on content and style.

------Copy & Paste this section below into a new post and answer ALL of the questions completely ---- 

The Brief Part 1 - Outline

Answer the following questions in full, complete sentences. Title the post "Brief Outline" and post it in the Writing Tab of your Project. Every student must do this assignment. Cut and paste the assignment below and write your answers below each point. You must respond to ALL items (#4 can be skipped if there is no individual client). Click Shift-Return to start a new line.

1. Write a A 1-2 sentence project description. This description should not include the name of the project and should be written in the third person. 
   1. What is the "soul" of your project? Describe the idea of the project in conceptual terms. This should paint a conceptual picture in the readers mind. (1 sentences)
   2. What is the "body" of your project? Describe the basic technical or physical construction of the project. This should NOT go into excessive detail, just provide an overview. Describe the project to someone with no technical knowledge in as few words as possible. The reader should be able to envision what the project looks like. ( sentences)
      
      Examples:
      Night Light Blankie: A child's sensory blanket that provides comfort and privacy in the high stress environment of the hospital using weight, textures, and light. The blanket transforms into a mini light up fort over a child’s head.
      Cocoon: a shroud that explores human spirituality and the concept of life after death through the use of repetitive religious iconography. Composed of over 300 pieces of laser cut balsa wood lined with space tape, the icons are arranged using a mathematical strange attractor.
2. Why does your project exist? The why explains how your project changes the world. It is the reason your project exists – 
   1. What social issue does your project engage? (1 sentence)
   2. Who is your project helping?  (1 sentence)
   3. How does the project change the world? This can be in a simple physical way or in a complex social way. (1 sentence)
   4. What important social, intellectual, or technical questions does it raise? (1 sentence)
3. Who is the project for? Who will use it and in what context (1 sentence)
4.   If you are designing for a specific person, answer the following:
   1. What is the client's name and what is their medical condition, if any? (1 sentence)
   2. How does their condition relate to your project? Include concise and compelling information about the client you are working with, their condition, and how that relates to your project design. (1 sentence)
   3. What is their personality like and how does it inform your design process? (1 sentence)
5. How does your project work. In non-jargonistic language, answer the following 
   1. What is the basic technology behind your project? (1 sentence)
   2. What is technically innovative about your project? How does it differ from existing technology? (1 sentence)
   3. How does a user physically and mentally interact with the project? (1-2 sentences)

Janice:

Bad posture and back pain are an epidemic in today's society. With the rise of technology and desk jobs, more and more people are hunched over during their '9 to 5', and teenagers are suffering too, from school work and phone use. Approx. 85% of the population will experience back pain. Inspired by facehuggers from the movie Alien, Xenobrae exposes the parasite that the general public turns a blind eye to. Now that they can see and feel its legs wrap around them, straightening their back will be an undemanding and even appealing activity. 

Xenobrae is made of fabric hardened with resin in the lumbar and clavicle areas for support, and attached with wooden tendrils that are reinforced with rubber-bands to maintain shape and slightly dig into the body to remind the user how to position their body. 

Sina:

Eighty percent of the population will experience back pain at some point in their lives. As technology becomes a more prominent part of people's daily lives, they become more stationary and less aware of their posture. The Xenobrae is a wearable that fits over the back and supports the spine to improve posture. Designed to look like a leeching alien, it highlights the epidemic of bad posture in today's society. 

A single piece of fabric connects the aesthetic and functional parts of the Xenoblade. It has been molded into the form of an alien a tiny leeching alien. A long strip of the fabric running through the center is woven to have rigidity in the areas of the back that need the most support, its shape represents the spine of the alien. Elongated arms come out of the center to hook on and connect to the wearer's body and represent the leeching of the alien. Together they help support the wearer's spine while also creating a creepy alien which leeches onto their back.

Richie: Sunken Woodlands is an artificial coral reef made of concrete in the shape of a tree, to symbolize protection and preservation of the environment. Placed in the ocean, the concrete tree provides a habitat for marine life. Concrete is a great habitat for coral because of its high calcium content and porous surface. A lot of concrete is manufactured with fabric in it for extra support. For our concrete, our fabric will not only be for support, but the tips of the fiber will protrude from the concrete and light up green to attract fish. Our project is helping the underwater environment and the aquatic animals who inhabit it. Coral reefs are being destroyed, it is expected that more than 90% of earth's coral reefs will be gone by 2050. Coral reefs support a large amount of ocean life, losing coral reefs would also mean endangering many species of aquatic animals. Our project is attempting to mitigate some of this damage by creating an artificial habitat for aquatic life and asking if society should be worried about the underwater environment as well as the above-water environment. I think that the tree is an important symbol for this because we often think of trees as a symbol of environmental protection. Our project is not only for aquatic life who need a habitat. It is also a statement about how environmental change in the oceans is not getting enough attention. I hope this project makes people reflect on how we are treating the underwater environment.  

Karena: Many of the world’s Coral Reef’s are dying or already dead due to the mining of coral, destructive fishing practices, warming oceans, and pollution. This will cause devastating effects not only on the marine animals that depend on the reefs but also to humans who rely on reefs for jobs, food, and health. Sunken Woodlands provides the solution to replace dead reefs so that marine animals who depended on the reef don't lose their habitat. Sunken Woodlands is a fiber-reinforced concrete sculpture submerged in the ocean to provide a new habitat for coral and other marine life.

Sunken Woodlands is formed from concrete to stimulate coral growth because concrete has a porous surface and high calcium content. It is in the shape of a tree because a tree is considered a symbol of immortality and a fresh start in life. Concrete is utilized since it has a very porous surface and is high in calcium which is ideal for growing coral. Sunken Woodlands has Affoa's green LED fibers woven into the statue to reinforce the concrete and also to attract animals. Although it is unknown exactly why it is presumed that it is because the green light illuminates plankton which smaller fish eat and the bigger fish eat those smaller fish and so on. 

Aveen:

Illuminated Commuting is a system that enables bikers and skateboarders to communicate with drivers much as a driver would use their car lights to communicate with other drivers. Illuminated Commuting can be attached to an existing helmet and is controlled with a touch glove that has fingertips made out of conductive thread; this allows the user to simply tap one of their fingers to their thumb in order to activate one of the lights, instead of having to find the correct button on a little remote. Use of this system will lower the number of accidents on bikes and skateboards in scenarios where a driver or other commuter misinterprets a hand signal or doesn't see the other party due to low light. The helmet is equipped with a multitude of LED strips in order to maintain a minimalistic look while maximizing visibility and ease of installation. Conductive thread woven into each fingertip of a glove creates a sort of "touch glove", such that when the fingertips touch the common ground (in this case, the thumb) they close the circuit and act as a kind of switch. In a future iteration, a Bluetooth module will allow the glove and helmet to communicate wirelessly, replacing the wire that runs up and down the user's sleeve.

Sam:

A glove and helmet that work together to make motorcycles, bikes, and skateboards safer. The glove uses touchpoints on the fingertips to activate turn signals, brake lights, and visibility lights on the helmet. 

       Designed to make motorcycling, biking, and skateboarding safer, Illuminated Commuting allows a user to activate brake lights, turn signals, and visibility lights on the rider's helmet by means of a glove with touchpoints on the fingertips. Illuminated Commuting will have a great effect on the world because it will reduce deaths and injuries due to accidents among bikers, cyclists, and skaters. This project brings attention to the safety of people who use alternative methods of transportation. In general, drivers are not careful enough towards the well being of these people. The user interacts with the glove simply by pressing a finger to their thumb. The thumb acts as a common ground, with the other four fingers as the left turn signal, visibility light, brake light, and right turn signal. This is innovative because it allows for easy signaling for a biker. Using conductive thread in the fibers of the glove causes there to be no wires in it. There are currently no products that do what this glove will do. 

Kevin:

A comfortable dome chair that uses clean energy and has a built-in charging station for their devices. The citrus chair lets the user charge their phone or other devices without having a plug near them, so if the user doesn't want to get up there is a plug built right into the chair for charging their devices as they need. The chair is Made in slicer for fusion 360 witch, cuts up a 3D model made in fusion and makes it into a waffle of the model that is easy to put together. A special fiber provided by AFFoA consisting of two entwined wires that when rubbed up against each other create a charge and put it in a battery. LED fibers woven into the seat will also show the level of battery charge in the chair so the user knows when they can plug in their phone.

Hagar:

 The Citrus Chair is a rocking chair that harnesses and stores kinetic energy. A woven seat, containing energy harvesting wires as well as LED indicators, is supported by a rocking hemisphere made with cardboard waffling.

In the push for clean energy, energy harvesting is viewed as a way to replace fossil fuels. Fossil fuels, such as coal, exist in a definite number; their burning also heavily contributes heavily to global warming and pollution. The Citrus Chair provides a secondary source of clean energy to combat this. The chair's design is geared towards modern apartment living as well as large human-focused, buildings such as airports or shopping malls. By rocking in the chair, the user supplies themselves with creates clean energy in they can use to charge their electronic devices, lowering the use of fossil fuels and electricity costs.

The chair adapts textile technology that is being developed by the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America to a domestic context. AFFoA is currently fabricating an energy harvesting fiber consisting of two entwined wires. When the chair rocks back and forth it moves the wires against each other to stimulate an electrical current. This project adapts high tech textiles to fit in with a more domestic context. The chair functions as a normal rocking chair but is outfitted with plugs for electronics. LED indicators, woven into the chair’s seat, easily allow the user to monitor the battery's stored energy levels.

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Ben Pratt Brief:

            The UV Mini is a collapsible pouch that uses embedded UV LEDs to sterilize makeshift surgical tools and uses hinges to collapse for easy storage in first aid kits or rural hospitals. The UV Mini allows the user to perform safe emergency procedures when first responders are not available. It allows unconventional tools to be safe to cut and come in contact with the person in need. It stops the spread of bad viruses and bacteria from entering the patients' system that may have been on the unconventional tool. Whether on an airplane or on top of a mountain, The UV Mini allows for safe emergency procedures. In the past, those helping the person in need would need to waste precious time to find makeshift sterilization systems or use unsterilized tools, both of which put the patient at risk. The UV Mini is for doctors or medical personnel who believe they can save a life in a life-death situation. 

             The UV Mini uses tiny UV LED strips that are embedded in the fabric using tiny LED UV fibers. These UV fibers sterilize tools such as kitchen knives, tweezers, or anything else that may need to be sterilized, like water or bandages. UV lights are a fast and efficient method of sterilization that has yet to be made use of in the medical world. All the user must do is stretch the collapsible hinges out to their full length, turn on the UV lights, and insert their tools into the collapsible pouch. 

zach's Brief

The UV Mini can sanitize utensils and surgical tools. Doctors working in developing countries will have immediate access to sanitized surgical tools during emergencies.  Thousands of patients can be saved from being exposed to contaminated blood, cross infections or even death.

The UV Mini container is made of a portable, collapsible fabric container with 20 small strips of UV lights woven into it. The UV Mini stands at 8’’x 4’’ tall. The UV lights kill germs and bacteria. Regular dishwashers use water and steam to clean and sanitize dishes, but the UV sanitizer uses UV LED lights only; no water is needed. The user puts their contaminated tools or utensils into the fabric container then the flap closes on top and once the container is closed the UV LED lights will come on and after 5 minutes, the contents inside will be sanitized. 

Your portfolio tab is the part of your project viewable to the world. This is where you will present your work to your coaches and peers for your studio review presentation. This is also what family, friends, colleges, the media, and everyone outside of NuVu will see. It is the record of your work and must stand alone, telling a compelling story of your project.

Portfolio pages have 2-3 posts in this order:

1. The Presentation Post: This post's privacy is set to Everyone. This post showcases your final design by telling the comprehensive story of how your idea was born, developed, and manifested. The arc of the story should encompass the, How of your project in a compelling narrative. It showcases your design process including your brainstorming, each of your iterations, and your final prototype. It allows the viewer to delve deeply into your process.
   • Every Slide should have a Title and Caption.
     The body of this post is The Brief. You should include a version of the Brief for each collaborator in the project.
   • This post will be used in your review presentation at the end of the session.
2. Optional Video: This post's privacy is set to Everyone. A video showing the interactive functionality of your project. The title of this post will be Video.
3. Presentation Script: This post's privacy is set to School. Each group will post their script for there presentation. This post will be used to prepare for and practice your presentation. This post should be titled "Presentation Script" and should not be made public. Alternatively, 

After reading this post and completing your Portfolio Tab, you must make sure you have done the following:

• For all posts (except the Script) in the Portfolio tab you must change ownership and privacysettings (see post below.)
• Change the representative image and "show project on profile page" 
• Enter the one sentence description for the project. This will appear on your transcript.