A blanket that detects its own orientation

April 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment

If you want to capture a 3D model of a physical object, you could use a Kinect, a couple of lasers, constructive light, or even a simple touch sensor mounted on a robotic arm. Those are all expensive devices, and somewhat unnecessary now that you can just throw a blanket over an object and get a 3D model instantaneously.

The project is called IM BLANKY and it’s supposed to reproduce 3D shapes by simply throwing it over an object. The petals in the flower motif are pieces of conductive fabric that serve as contacts for the electrified tassel in the center of each flower. When the blanket is thrown over an object, the tassel is pulled by gravity, makes contact with one of the six conductive petals and sends a tilt switch to a microcontroller.

While we’re not too sure about the resolution IM BLANKY will provide with only 20 tilt sensors, but we imagine this could be used for a few medical applications.

via dvice

Filed Under: wearable hacks Tagged With: , , , ,

Check it out, my clothes are electric. No, seriously

February 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Someday you may be able to use your crotch or armpits to recharge that cellphone. Heck, maybe there won’t even be a battery, just a capacitor which gets its juice from Power Felt, a fabric that converts body heat to electricity.

Now we mention the nether-regions because it’s funny, but also because it makes the most sense. Researchers have developed a fabric containing carbon nanotubes used in a way that generates electricity based on a temperature differential. We figure the areas on the body that have high heat loss would be the most efficient locations for the fabric since it is currently extremely expensive to produce (the hope is that mass-production would reduce cost by orders of magnitude). So we think battery-charging briefs are a definite possibility.

What we see here is a nano-scale Peltier electricity generator. It’s the same concept as this candle-based generator, except the increased efficiency of the Power Felt lets your wasted body heat take the place of the flame.

There’s a white paper on the topic but you can’t get at it without surrendering some [George Washingtons].

[via Reddit and Megadgets]

Filed Under: green hacks, wearable hacks Tagged With: , , , , ,

Tears from your lonely heart will activate a comforting tune

February 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

If you’re forever alone we’d guess you’ve long since stopped crying about it. But if you’re still prone to shed a tear on a dateless Valentine’s day this project’s for you. [Mikeasaurus] spruced up this pillow to play a tune when it senses your lonely soul. It’s got a moisture sensor which triggers an audio greeting card just when your weeping really starts to get soggy.

If you look closely at the top portion of the white fabric in the picture you can see there are rows of stitching. These hold a matrix of conductive wire mesh fabric on the inside of the pillow case. There are two buses made up of alternating rows (think of the tines of two forks pointed together) which make up the probes. When the gap is bridged by moisture a transistor circuit triggers the audio bits from a greeting card to play a song. Check out the demo after the break. We’re not satisfied that [Mikeasaurs’] couldn’t even bring himself to cry real tears for the clip, but maybe years of solder fumes have clogged up those tear ducts.

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Filed Under: digital audio hacks, Holiday Hacks Tagged With: , , , ,