CRII: CHS: Developing Next-Generation Rapid Prototyping Tools to Catalyze Innovation in Smart Textiles

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This project works towards rapid prototyping smart textiles by generating the core insights necessary to support broader participation in this unique domain. This research will generate these insights through the design, development, and systematic evaluation of a tool for designing smart textiles. Smart textiles combine age-old processes of knitting and weaving with advances in fiber-based smart materials to create soft and flexible circuits for a wide range of applications. To date, smart textiles have been designed to do things like harvest energy from body movement or integrate the display and sensing capacities of a smartphone on the sleeve of one's shirt. While initial advances in smart textiles reveal their potential to significantly benefit society, the difficulty of prototyping smart textiles is limiting innovation in this nascent but transformational design space.This research will support innovation in smart textiles and advance the state of the art in computer-aided design and fabrication by synthesizing the workflows of textile and circuit design. Developing the prototyping tool will require the following: (1) developing computational representations of smart textiles; (2) developing and evaluating novel techniques for bridging textile and circuit design, and (3) studying the unique forms of expressivity and engagement that emerge from the tool. In the process, this research will produce a set of generalizable data structures and user interface techniques to support broad audiences in designing and fabricating smart textiles. Additionally, the insights this research will produce on new forms of expression and engagement that emerge from combining computation and craft are necessary to further ubiquitous computing research, which seeks to integrate technology into the rich material landscapes that characterize everyday life. While many will benefit from exploring the applicability of smart textiles in their lives and work, prior research suggests that the practices this research will make possible are likely to resonate with under-represented groups in science and engineering.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.