Category: Finished Projects

Mr. Walrus

First I wanted to create bear mittens where the mouth would be illuminated with red lights when we open and close the bear’s mouth. But unfortunately, it is not possible to do it with a momentary switch. The light would only have been on while we were pressing on the switch, and that means, when the bear’s mouth is closed. And there was nothing more than illuminated mittens.
So I decided to create a marionette that will teach children something more: Morse code.
‘Morse’ has two different meanings in French: There is the code and also the animal (called walrus in english).
The marionette’s eyes (2 blue LEDS) will light up when we close the walrus’s mouth. These LEDS are wired up to a momentary switch and a battery.

Gravity pendant is a soft huggable light for ceiling hang.

Another feature is there is a small gap on the lamp that you can insert things or your hand and create silhouette. Shadow play or guessing game is some suggested activities.

The light turned on and off by pulling down.

This product is made of spandex fabric, cotton filling, LED stripes and the circuit.`

After presenting this light to class, I decided to make some adjustment to the product, by trying to combine different materials together to see the different diffusions. Also, instead of stuffing the lamp with cotton, I tried plastic beads to give more weights to the pendant.

The result came out unpleasantly because the fabric is still not right. However, I’m happy with the weight of the new stuff material as it gives more sense of gravity.

I’m glad that I’ve tried it over and will continue developing this thing until it works! 3D fabric is my new goal!

There are lot of times that you will feel angry when someone say some bad words to you or argue with you. Then you want to warn him/her that you already angry, and you are controlling yourself.

The punch glove just the tool you need at that moment! It will show different levels angry to your opponent!

Watch out!!

Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years. To address that issue, I made Obesity Warning Doll that teaches children about complications related to unhealthy eating.  Childhood obesity in fact can adversely affect nearly every organ system, but I chose to high-light most common organs that can be damaged by the condition. 

I experimented with different fabrics (cotton, jersey, felt and sheer), stocking was the best option in illustrating body fat and diffusing LED lights. I have to say… Stocking was the hardest textile I’ve ever worked with because it is not meant to be cut and sew into different shapes. At the first attempt, the organs were realistic size to its body, but they turned out to be ineffective when stuffed inside of the body.

So, I made organs  bigger with different different colored felt.   Connecting LEDs in parallel was a lot harder than imagined.  I chose two different voltage LEDs, so when I connected them in parallel all together, the lower voltage ones turned on and the other voltage ones didn’t work. Lesson learned by failing… electricity flows through efficient route. ( Its super IMPORTANT to know voltage and amps of your LEDs!)

To solve that problem, I made two circuits.  After sewing together all the openings in each organs I realized the positive and negative ends were touching each other in some organs causing the entire circuit NOT WORKING… So I reopened all the organs and covered the bare wires with electrical tape.

Then, I ran into another problem where I had to deal with two switch system… I wanted to turn all the LEDs together,  so I connectd two separate circuits together and made into one conductive switch using conductive thread.

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I made sure that the wire and thread connects nicely, and used the thread to make the doll’s lip and eyes.

I imagine the doll to be used by school nurses to teach middle school students the danger of obesity and related complications on organs. It also can be placed at school cafeterias or on a kitchen refrigerator at home to remind healthy eating.  When the doll put the McDonald’s flies into its mouth, the organs will light up to inform the viewers organs at risk.

As a native Texan I’m supposed to be interested or at least aware of football. But I guess I’m just a bad Texan for not being into football culture. However I’ve always been interested in brains and guts, and after reading some articles about football players and head trauma, I was inspired to make this plush night light.

For those who don’t know, many football players suffer from CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy. When the player gets knocked around in the head, the brain tissue starts to degenerate and an accumulation of tau proteins start to form. These proteins cause long term symptoms such as aggression, depression, dementia and more.

My impact helmet could be an educational tool for people to visually experience the effects of hitting someone in the head. Perhaps for parents, can monitor the amount of times their kids are creating force on their developing brains. If many kids are wearing them during a game, they may be able to see the effects of hitting others in the head.

During the process of prototyping the helmet, I learned a lot about sewing rounded, headpieces. The craft isn’t quite there yet, and with some practice I’d like to try and perfect it. Soldering and learning the circuitry was entirely new to me and I would like to find better ways of creating a more stable impact switch in my helmet.

The design is about the process of a silkworm turning to a butterfly and escape away from the cocoon to your room. (So there’ll be a invisible butterfly in your room).

I was supposed to use a motor to make it work but failed to slow it down. No matter what measures I tried the motor just rotated at one speed or didn’t move at all. I still don’t know why. I’ll put my test model here latter, anyone have any ideas please leave a note here!!

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.