Moire pattern exploration

found animation here

Using #1 Medium Grade steel wool instead of Extra Fine

resistance of cond. felt ball with 2.2K resistor leads from lara grant on Vimeo.

sustainable project

This week our class was assigned two assignments, one was to create a project reflecting my relationship and/or thoughts regarding energy and sustainability. Second, to create a log of of the waste I produce through out the week and come up with some possible solutions to reduce it. This was a good project, it catapulted me into a mode of regular awareness, reflection and resolution. You can find that post here.

My project was one that came in a flash, one of those ideas that didn’t come out of much examination of beliefs or contemplation of moral ideals. I have been taking these ideas more and more, I have lately been embracing these intuitive interests, for I have concluded that I have put myself through many a head ache and cyclical process that tends to bring me back to these initial kernels from once I started. I simply am choosing to bring them into relevance a lot sooner nowadays.

So this is a very simple narrative. I accidentally knocked a mug off my window sill about a week ago, and when I finally got to sweeping it up this week, I felt like I wanted to save it and use the parts for another project. I often get this feeling, but rarely act on it, also, there is always a draw to me from slick primary colored pieces of material, such as this bright red slick ceramic mug. It occurred to me that to patch it back together using glue would be inelegant and clumsy. Instead, I instantly thought of embedding the pieces into wool felt. Previously I had made some jewelry this way from a broken ring I wanted to hang onto. Hanging onto an object by preserving it in my favorite medium is always a good idea.

There is no photo of the final product, because unfortunately this project failed. The pieces could not be held together properly while the wool needed to be shrunk around the object. I would need to fix the pieces of the mug together prior to felting around it, which would then take the point of the project away entirely. Or, I think I could pre-felt a mug without the pieces, and then cut into that wool mug and embed the pieces one by one.
Or, maybe I will turn these pieces into red jewels embedded into newly designed wool jewelry… hmmmm…

waste management

I took note of the trash I produced for a week. I did so by taking photos and listing things in a .txt doc as I was discarding them. The “waste” chart is calculated by either instances of the event, such as toilet paper is calculated by how many times I went to the bathroom. Some items were more calculable such as the cans of cat food I end up recycling each week, I always feed my meows one can per cat…. soooometimes more, but not often. So, I know that I use 21 cans per week. Others were even estimated, such as paper towels, one of my cats, Koshka, has been throwing up a lot, and I have needed to clean up very large and wet messes involving lots of paper towels. I was not able to count, nor can I remember how many were used, especially when I am doing so freshly ripped from bed at 5 in the morning.
So the data isn’t highly accurate, but using my comparative judgement and hard numbers

These were the majority of items that passed through m hands and into either a trash bin or recycling container. Even though I labeled the chart “waste”, I did recycle a lot of the items. From the values I plugged into the above the chart, I made another by figuring out how many of those items or instances of them went into the recycling bin.

Based on the figures and items listed throughout the week, there are some things that come out as clear solutions to the waste problem.

Let’s look at the top three contenders:
Toilet paper – I go pee a lot. I admit the small nature of my bladder, plus I constantly have a beverage/water in hand. Plus I am also willing to admit that I menstruated this week, which automatically heightens the number of trips to the bathroom. The only solution I see to this problem is if I do like Indonesians do, use water, not toilet paper. I found this method clean and incredibly tolerable right off the bat. Just need to get a bucket!

Cat food cans – I use the 5.5 oz cans, perhaps buying the 12 oz cans will reduce the amount of packaging and metal waste, even if I do recycle them, the process still takes energy.

Plastic bags – Ok, clearly I need to become more diligent with carrying my own bag and make sure that the person who is bagging my goods does not unnecessarily double bag.

It seems that most of these items can be swapped with reusable alternatives.
tampons/pads – they have washable cloth pads
beverage container – thermos
paper towels – washable rags

Testing materials part 2

Within this post I am testing two types of conductive felted shapes. Some are made by needle felting using the conductive batts I made. Others are made by crocheting merino wool yarn/conductive thread mix, and then hand felting those pieces to shrink and tighten.

This tendril was felted out of the first conductive batting I carded. It was thin and didn’t have enough steel wool distributed throughout, so I could not get a proper reading with the leads at either end while stretching and scrunching it up.

This is the 6.5″ medium length tendril from the first material test post. I felted it by machine and hand to the final length of 5″.
here is the resistance measured after I felted it up
- ~14 ohms relaxed
- ~6 ohms stretched

I crocheted another swatch specifically to felt. This is a 17×20 sc stitch swatch.

Before Felting
dimensions: 4.5″ x 4.25″
- ~3.5 Ohms relaxed
- ~1.7 Ohms stretched

Felted
dimensions: 3.5″ x 3.25″
- ~4 ohms relaxed
- ~2 ohms stretched

read on the diagonal after felting
- ~ 5 ohms relaxed
- ~ 3 ohms stretched

NOTE: I believe that the felted and non felted readings should be considered synonymous. It seems that I might of just rounded up on the one for the felt, and since the readings always have a +/-2 ohm range in each state, they can be considered falling in the same range. aaaahhh… the inconsistencies of wearable tech….

Untitled from lara grant on Vimeo.

I need to test other materials in order to see what other materials I can use to make a soft pressure sensor, moving onto felt medium, I needle felted a pure wool ball and wrapped it in conductive wool.

Untitled from lara grant on Vimeo.

resistance of yarn/cond. thread mix crocheted over cond. felt from lara grant on Vimeo.

resistance of cond. felt ball with needled steel wool leads from lara grant on Vimeo.

resistance of felted strip of cond. wool from lara grant on Vimeo.

resistance of cond. felt ball with cond. strip leads from lara grant on Vimeo.

resistance of cond. felt ball with fabric leads from lara grant on Vimeo.

resistance of cond. felt ball with eyelet leads from lara grant on Vimeo.

resistance of cond. felt ball with 2.2K resistor leads from lara grant on Vimeo.

resistance of cond. felt 2.2K resistor leads from lara grant on Vimeo.

Creating conductive batting!

!!Carding wool!!

In order to make conductive felt, you need to use steel wool, a flexible abrasive usually used for taking paint off the side of a house. There are several ways I have added steel wool to the pure wool before, either layering it into my combed top, or hand carding it with pet brushes. However, I have always known that the best way had to be using a drum carder. So, you can imagine my excitement when I had the opportunity to buy one.
serious YAY!
Below is the beautiful machine and this post documents the first time carding with combed top. There is no steel wool added yet, I wanted to get a feel for carding with it before I potentially ruined it by putting foreign materials through. heh heh

The way this drum carder works is you lay the wool on the tray in the front of the two drums and crank the handle on the side. The smaller drum (licker-in) grabs and pull the fibers in, then transfers the fibers to the larger drum (swift, I also call it main) where it gets distributed around the circumference while the fibers are separated and turned the same direction by the pins.

In order to get a nicely carded batting you want to out the wool mixture through the carder at least twice. There is a way to break and damage your fibers by putting them through too much, so be mindful of that. I have found that 2-4 times is substantial, depending on what I’m mixing.

I split the batting in two lengthwise and rolled each half through the carder again. I then decided that I wanted to add more wool and color, so I grabbed a little red.

To remove the batting, you use a tool called a doffer that is basically a long stick pointed at one end and strong enough to pull loose the fibers from the drum and their neighbors. My carder came with a wooden one. You slip it in the channel between the wool and the drum created by the brass metal seam on the drum. Pull up and pull the fibers loose from themselves so one side is free. Do this all down the seam.

I learned a awesome trick in order to get the batting of the main drum from watching these amazing tutorials I found on youtube. This woman is my hero and I hope to put up some of my own vids with a definite shout out to her and her tips. Using a sushi mat makes it come off smoothly each time, and if you are already a felt enthusiast, you should have some of these already laying around.

I then split the batting differently this time around, I split it in half through the thickness of the batt. This way your fibers are already teased out to the width you need.

After the first one, I needed to make another.

Tips:
+ Keep the wool thin and spread evenly on the tray before you feed it into the carder.
+ Use you hand to gently guide the fibers onto the main drum if it isn’t transferring.
+ Turn the handle SLOWLY, this way almost all the fiber gets transferred and gives you more control of the situation.
+ use a soft bristol brush to pack down each new layer by putting the bristols down on main drum and turning handle.
+ clean the licker-in and swift as you go… I’m collecting all my waste fiber to felt with later!

Duck system

This week in Softness of Things, we are focusing on systems. Split into groups, we are to design a system.
My group: Milena Silkerk, Jelani John and Elie Zananiri.

We ended up designing a game. Having 12 people in the class not including us, we will divide people into 3 groups of 4. Each one of those 4 people will pick a role from the list and stick with it throughout that task. There are three tasks, all of which will be completed in sequential order. In the beginning of each task, each member of the team will be able to pick a new role.
Each team gets one sheet of paper with text on it and the supplies in order to perform the roles from us.
Each team gets 3 minutes to finish the task.

rules:
-Once a role is chosen, each person has to participate towards the creation of each task.
-You get 3 minutes to get to the end of the task.
-If manager, you must direct and order you teammates, they can not operate unless you say so.
-If you choose to take a break, it must be for the entire duration of the task and can not help your teammate. Not even verbal suggestions!

goal:
To strategically and creatively complete your task to the best of your abilities with the constraints you are given.

roles:
colorer    (black out/colorist),
change words    (change any word on a sheet of paper)
manage (teammates have to follow your instructions),
cutter    (cut/shred/destroy),
printer    (prints paper with whatever they want on it)
attacher (paper clips, glue, stapler),
take a break/gofer (go fetch whatever a teammate wants, or choose to take a break and do nothing)
fold        (fold paper)

materials needed for roles:
scissors
tape
stapler
black and colored markers
paper clips
glue sticks
pens/pencils

tasks:
1) make a duck
2) create a story/poem about your duck
3) exhibit your poem and duck

Parts of the system:
-Input- one piece of paper with printed text
- Goal/Output- specific goals that have a blur once put through the relative, interpretive mind of the human. We are inviting the mind as a process itself. How many ways can u think of representing our goals with the items that are given to you?
-Rules- everyone must pick a role. each person must perform their role once before the end of the task. Everyone must stick to their role. complete the task.

What makes this interesting-
We are inviting the mind as a process itself. How many ways can u think of representing our goals with the items that are given to you?
A closed system verging on emergent. has a start and finish, yet the flexibility to give different results overtime. Such as the possible combinations of roles that can exist in each group. This way the team can have different capabilities which will result in different outcomes.

Thesis – start of materials tests

Starting from the smallest, most basic component, I will be lead to spiral, radiate and reach down unexplored roads.

It is sometimes hard to remember this when you start out with something so fundamental, I appreciate the process, yet, at the same time, want to fast forward to the sophisticated problems.

Ok, with that in mind… let’s begin!

My gathered supplies are conductive thread from Lame Life Saver, wool roving and wool yarn.

First, I will measure the resistance of the thread
- 14 ohms per foot, depending how tight you hold it.

- 14 ohms relaxed

- 7 ohms stretched

All swatches are crocheted with a yarn/conductive thread mix with a size H/8 hook. Resistance is mainly measured by clipping the leads of my multimeter to the middle of the outer edges.

- ~6 ohms relaxed

- ~3 ohms stretched and scrunched

10×10 single crochet square. Lame thread and merino wool yarn mix. 2.5″x2.25″

This swatch is crocheted with considerably thicker yarn. This causes the conductive thread to be few a and far between, which causes great inconsistency between readings.

- readings jump from 17 ohms to 8 ohms and other values from there while relaxed.

- ~ 7 ohms … this was jumpy too.

17×10 half double crochet swatch. Lame thread and merino wool yarn mix. 5″x4″

- if I put the leads at the end of a row, I can measure the resistance of that row pretty consistently. Yet, putting the leads anywhere else gives back a very inconsistent reading. I believe the spacing of the hdc stitch is too great for the conductive to touch enough of it’s neighbor to act as one resistive body.

6 sc stitch circumference, 16″ length

- ~35 ohms relaxed

- ~14 stretched

- ~4 squished up

6 sc stitch circumference, 6.5″ length

- ~16 ohms relaxed

- ~5 ohms stretched and squished

6 sc stitch circumference, 2.5″ length

- ~10 ohms relaxed

- ~3 ohms stretched

I recently received water-based copper ink, I felted 3 small shapes in order to dip them in the ink in hopes to create something I could squish and get a reading.

snapea crisps!

For the ball, I thought of injecting the ink inside to soak up. Maybe the pressure from squishing the outside will be enough to get a reading. This way, the copper coating is protected too. I purchased an amazing “taste injector” from a cooking supply store to administer the ink. taste injector… awesome.

Lamp Project – testing conductive inks

Testing conductive pigments on paper. Purchased here