Textile Tilt Sensor

To measure different positions of limbs and parts of the body we tried to build a simple so-called Tilt-sensor. To keep the first idea as simple as possible the raw prototype consits of a cardboard-layer, coppertape and a wire to close the circuit. In the image below the wire is represented by a closed circuit, and the conductive pads, made out of coppertape, are represented by three switches.

 

From Cardboard to Fabric

Our idea was to use the tilt-sensor in our costume, therefore we had to replace the coppertape and the cardboard by fabric. The conductive pads out of copper were replaced by conductive fabric and instead of the cardboard we used felt. The wire, used to close the circuit, was replaced by a pearl out of conductive material. 

The different components were sewed together with recycled copperwire (see circuit above). Non-conducitve pearls were used to isolate the conductive thread ( which was used to combine the anode and the conductive pearl) to avoid a short circuit or unwanted contact between the wire and the conducitve fabric.

Code:

int pushButton = 2;
int pushButton3 = 3;
int pushButton4 = 4;
int pushButton5 = 5;

// the setup routine runs once when you press reset:
void setup() {
  // initialize serial communication at 9600 bits per second:
  Serial.begin(9600);
  // make the pushbutton's pin an input:
  pinMode(pushButton, INPUT);
  pinMode(pushButton3, INPUT);
  pinMode(pushButton4, INPUT);
  pinMode(pushButton5, INPUT);
}

// the loop routine runs over and over again forever:
void loop() {
  // read the input pin:
  int buttonState = digitalRead(pushButton);
  int buttonState3 = digitalRead(pushButton3);
  int buttonState4 = digitalRead(pushButton4);
  int buttonState5 = digitalRead(pushButton5);
  // print out the state of the button:
  if(buttonState == true){
   Serial.print("Patch 1");
   Serial.println(buttonState);
  }
  else if(buttonState3 == true){
   Serial.print("Patch 2");
   Serial.println(buttonState3);
  }
  else if(buttonState4 == true){
   Serial.print("Patch 3");
   Serial.println(buttonState4);
  }
  else if(buttonState5 == true){
   Serial.print("Patch 4");
   Serial.println(buttonState5);
  }
  else{
    Serial.println("Kein Input");
  }
  delay(100);        // delay in between reads for stability
}

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