Spring 2023
Academic:
MIT Computing Fabrics
Collaborator Sailin Zhong
Awards & Publication- DIS’23 Conference
#Affective Device
#Machine Knitting
#Connectedness with Nature
#Wearables
#Soft robot
#Embodied Experience
NugiTex
NugiTex is a line of interactive, afective wearable garments that convey the embodied experience of plants us- ing device-initiated haptic cues. The haptic cuesrefect a plant’s“comfort”level based on proximal environmental conditions, aiming to increase awareness and induce feelings of closeness, symbiosis, and empathy with the user’s natural environment. Variationsin temperature and humidity in a room are then interpreted and translated into three types of haptic cues - shrinking, hard pushing, and mild pushing -each a metaphorical representation of the plant’s condition. Users are given these real-time haptic cues through FlowIO, a pneumatic platform for controlling the airfow and pressure of soft devices. We predict that the increase in awareness of natural entities through interactive embodied experiences will pro- mote the Inclusion of Nature in Self (INS), and encourage pro-environmental behaviors.
Design
Composed of infatable silicone and non-elastic textile layers, NugiTex responds to
nearby atmospheric conditions such as temperature and humidity levels, which are measured in real-time by
AirSpec, smart eyeglasses fitted with sensorsto collect environmental data.
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Fabrication
(a) NugiTex consists of two layers of knitted textile and a silicone layer (b) A single-bed knitting machine is used to fabricate textile layers
of two wearable garments: an arm warmer and a neck warmer. (c) By transferring stitches to an adjacent needle using a single-eye transfer tool, six lace holes (eyelets) on a neck warmer are designed to simulate both gentle and hard haptic pushes from elastomers patterned with six 30 mm-di- ameter circles. Transferring the bottom purls to stitches creates a tubular-shaped space to insert an elastomer for shrinking behavior when actuated
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Applications
We allowed visitors to either wear or touch the garment laying on a table. For our final demonstration, the interaction with the haptic
wearables will be set up in the form of an art installation capable of accommodating two participants at once.
Fabrication
(a) NugiTex consists of two layers of knitted textile and a silicone layer (b) A single-bed knitting machine is used to fabricate textile layers
of two wearable garments: an arm warmer and a neck warmer. (c) By transferring stitches to an adjacent needle using a single-eye transfer tool, six lace holes (eyelets) on a neck warmer are designed to simulate both gentle and hard haptic pushes from elastomers patterned with six 30 mm-di- ameter circles. Transferring the bottom purls to stitches creates a tubular-shaped space to insert an elastomer for shrinking behavior when actuated
Applications
