We made a lot of progress this weekend through prototyping different ideas that we had last week.

Yael fabric updates:

I began by working with dowels and muslin. I strayed away from string, especially any elastic string because pushing movements wouldn’t work and stretching movements would be absorbed by the string before reaching the fabric itself.

The first muslin test was with a single sheet of fabric and 4 dowels.

This did not at all have the effect I wanted. Not only was the fabric too deflated and flat, but it was also too stiff to produce the folds I wanted. The pulling motions of the dowels also proved to do very little for the fabric as well.

My second attempt included many sheets of muslin connected temporarily with tape as well as some wood within the different layers to try and encourage different folds. Some aspects of this second prototype were better while other aspects continued to fail. I decided that muslin was not the right material for this project.

My third attempt used one of the scraps of stretchy fabric in the scrap fabric bag. I LOVED how this moved. The stretching was so expressive, the folds could have been better. I would have also preferred if there was more thickness and shape to the form. My main concerns with the fabric is that what was given is very small. Several strips of the same fabric were provided, however adding a seam would decrease the stretching ability. I feel like there would have been a lot more potential to shape and structure if this fabric was large enough to drape over something or bundle up and pin at the bottom.

Kanvi Updates:

I made one prototype but I hooked up two servos to the Circuit Playground and attached my fabric in four places using straws as my “dowels.” I used tulle for my fabric here which definitely wasn’t the best choice, but I thought it was fun to see the different textures in folds for this part. I think I will take from Yael’s trials and use a stretchy fabric for the next iteration, and add in the fabric sensor so I can better visualize where the user would “pet” the desk friend.

I would also want to add some extensions, like “feet” where the buzzing pancake motors might sit or a proper setting for the Circuit Playground so it could detect light and/or sound near the pet.

Here are my videos!