Author: Tahnee Pantig

The idea for a musical yoga mat came about when I thought about my own yoga practice and how difficult it is to sync movement with yoga. In LA, teachers are known for their playlist and yoga classes with music often draw lots of students.

I wanted the switch to activate based on pressure sensitivity. Pushing your palm into the mat would activate the switch, but lightly touching your fingers would not. The switches are placed by the hands and feet. This placement is versatile for a number of yoga poses but I specifically placed them there for the sun salutation series, a common series in the yoga tradition. The switches consist of velostat sandwiched between two pieces of conductive fabric which are not in contact with each other. The most interesting thing for me is that the velostat acts as a resistor and registers the amount of pressure. There is one lead attached to each piece of conductive thread which then connects to the Arduino i.e. 2 leads per switch. This switch is powered by the Arduino board but can be powered by another battery pack.

 

On the bread board is a sound board which plays .ogg and .wave files. It’s capable of playing small sound bites. It’s great because it’s easy to transfer files, no coding required, just like transferring music onto an mp3. Each switch has an associated switch.

The challenge was definitely in the coding. At first, I thought I’d be coding for an analog switch but once I clarified that I just wanted an on/off switch, I realized that coding for a digital switch would be more effective. But the switch is still analog.

The tricky part was calibrating the switches for the right amount of pressure. I had done all the work without the yoga mat but then realized that the yoga mat itself added another layer of pressure so I had to recalibrate.

  

For the future, I’d like to play around with a board that allows two switches to play simultaneously.

The concept behind this product comes from my personal connection with rice. I come from a family of rice farmers and it is a large part of my identity, my culture, my history. I also thought rice would be an interesting material to play with diffusing LED light with. And thus the journey begins….

   Image on right: preliminary concepts for plush toy. Image on left: experimenting with light diffusion through rice.

Experimenting with rice was fun but then I decided to add another challenge of working with stretch fabric. I felt like the light diffusion would be better seen through sheer fabric and nylon provided that quality.

Image above: layering nylon fabrics of contrasting color added a dimensionality to the product while still retaining the sheer quality of seeing the rice grains and light diffusion.

I learned new skills while working on this project! I think the layering capabilities of nylon are incredibly interesting and I look forward to exploring that material in future projects. In addition, building circuits and soldering is a newly attained skills that I think will prove useful. Refreshing my sewing skills was very needed and I am pleased with how familiar I’ve become with the machines in the VFL.

Images above: process photos. On the right, soldering, on the left, sewing.

 

Images above (left): plush in off state, without rice and with the circuit on the outside. Image above (right): plush in on state with circuit inside.

The images below are of the product in its finished state. The plush sits on the shoulders of the user and the passive weight of the rice helps to relax muscles, similar in theory to how sandbags can be used in yoga classes to passively deepen a yoga posture.  The aroma of the rice and the lights also produce a calming effect.

  

 

   

Once I made the form, I realized how closely it resembled on-the-go travel pillows. I am hoping that for the next iteration, I’d like to play with this form and also include additions to distinguish it from the pillow and also to enhance its capabilities. One concept I am exploring is adding a hood with LED lights.