MA Musings

My initial sketch of the glove sensors and positions (2018) One of the key senses involved in draping a toile is touch. being able to feel and tweak the texture of a fabric, put it into place with accuracy and emotional creativity are essential to the success of a draper. At the moment common devices for interacting with VR are fairly large and clunky hand held devices with buttons and triggers. These can be very intuitive to use, or very not, depending on the manufacturer. I am experimenting with creating a design prototype for a lightweight glove that would enable both finger tip precision and control - enabling sensors to read exactly where in space the hand was for accurate recreation in VR, but also with return sensors of the fingertips that would allow the exact feeling of fingers on cloth, pins etc to be felt by the wearer. The prototype design will be 3D printed directly onto Power-mesh fabric with PLA  using autodesk sketchup as the design tool The p...

Mood Board and composite created by J.Hewitt February 2018   What is your specific role/responsibility in the project? I have very much taken on the role of project manager, I think it is essential that everyone knows what to do and the time frame they have to do it in. The team are all so creative that without very firm parameters we could quite happily just discuss and design indefinitely without actually producing the pre-requisite tasks. Therefore it is my main task to make sure as a team that we stay on track, that tasks are delegated suitably and everyone works effectively. I have been keeping notes, making lists and schedules, organising our meetings and keeping track of tasks and also setting up communication interfaces (WhatsApp and pinterest). Creatively, as well as producing initial ideas and concepts, I will be writing the bulk of the voiceovers and website text and be responsible for the photography. We all shared ideas and individual mood boards for th...

Hazard, B. (2018) Jema working with TiltBrush in Bradford R and M had not experienced Tilt brush before so it was exciting to see how they would react to being creative in 3dimensions but in a digital environment. I had attempted to get use of the Uni's vive in Queens Street, but the technician had not had time to install it all properly yet and could not give a definite schedule for it being up and running, so we decided to just go ahead and pay for the session ourselves and B booked us an afternoon at VR Immersion, Bradford . The company resides in a big, repurposed, but unprepossessing mill with camo netting on the walls, tuck shop behind the counter and a battered pool table in the corner, the headsets images projected onto pieces of chipboard painted white - not at all the hi-tech sci-fi facility one might have imagined, but then inside the headsets becomes the real world, and the outside environment simply a waiting room. Tilt Brush is an extraordinary fusing of e...

  Team Robot members with their Toiles 2018 What is the experience of project planning like in preparation for the initial live-pitch? In order to give the best presentation possible we wanted to dive headfirst into the research... We decided it was vital that all the team had experienced the physicality of draping with actual fabrics to fully appreciate the technical issues and quantity of waste produced through this way of patterning, (as well as an appreciation of the skill levels required!) to this end M and I held a mini workshop for R and B so they could try out their first toile creation. We cut 1m lengths of calico and demonstrated different techniques of pleating, darts etc before letting the other two loose with the pins! I videoed the process with an eye to B creating a short R&D series of videos on the final website It was agreed that it was actually harder than it looks, and also that the physical act of touching and handling cloth is an essen...

Jemas initial benefits and problems list (2018)   We want to find new ways of working for the future that will inspire and enhance the skills of designer and cutter while helping solve the problem of fabric waste and ecological impact. VR (or AR) would allow a cutter to drape in real time on a stand without actually using any fabric. This could be viewed from all angles in real time in the same VR space by a designer anywhere in the world, adjustments made, decisions on fit and fabric enacted instantly with the touch of a button. The technology could then be integrated with patterning software to digitally take apart the toile, make a pattern and send to factory. It would fuse the skills of an already talented workforce with technology that already exists (albeit in multiple forms) Tilt brush has proven the possibilities of intuitive artist creation in VR. Marvelous designer / Optitex already have fabric draping engines used for 3D simulation of 3D patterns. Combinin...

Matsuda, K. (2016) Hyper Reality what workshops/lectures do we propose to undertake? what are the social implications and viability of the product? Team robot met today to discuss the initial Ideas we had come up with individually - M has joined us so we now have 2 pattern cutters in the mix. After looking at current technologies and trying to think beyond what is already possible, my final contributions were, An online training academy to inspire young designers to work digitally. Having run into so many problems attempting to learn pattern software I thought a course of simple, well presented tutorials for optitex, MD etc and a supportive design based rather than tech based community would encourage new ways of working among young design and cutting students. A piece of Virtual Toile creation software. Using a VR technology like the VIVE's tilt-brush application, a pattern cutter would be able to drape a custom sized mannequin with simulated pieces of large cloth, r...

Deep Art Algorithm and Hewitt, J. (2018) Tokyo Drift What is your own understanding and interpretation of the Transitions conference ideas? In order to start getting my ideas together to talk about in our next group session, I've been looking at the digital manufacturing areas already being researched and exploited. The Transitions Conference is bringing together a wide variety of experts and companies across disciplines to share knowledge, learn and develop new ways of working, new materials and new technologies. The statistics of waste and pollution created by the textile industries is very sobering. It is vital that the industry moves forward at the same swift pace that other industries have to rectify damage done to the planet already and create a new sustainable future. This can be achieved in a variety of ways and the conference themes explore many of them. Suuchi Ramesh flags up 5 areas of development Supply ch...

Science board game "Compendium" 2018 Looking at a financial model for innovation and entrepreneurship. The creation of the Kickstarter Website in 2009 has to be one of the most innovative solutions to enabling entrepreneurship to flourish. It allows a variety of creative and technical projects to set a target, offer rewards and then for backers to pledge money in order for the project to be realised. Often there are smaller rewards plus a big final product too... this allows people to support creators and artists whose project they believe in, and want to exist in the world rather than just pre-purchasing an item. If sufficient funding is not raised then all pledges are cancelled and the project cancelled. It can of course learn from that, maybe look at why it did not reach it's goal and work harder to solve those issues. Marketing and social media play a huge part in the success of Kickstarter funding pledges, As does a professional and engaging pitch. ...

Christmas Window display 2017 How are the team working? What is the nature of Entrepreneurship? Initial meeting of just the three of us today, to talk in more depth about our joint project. We have a good combination of skills to go forward with, although none of us are particularly website/graphic poster art based, everyone is keen to learn new skills as well as use their current ones... both R and B have a background in film/animation so it would be good to incorporate that somehow into our final piece. We are still all interested in the robot/AI/human ethics idea, not quite sure how that might develop into an "innovation" yet - obviously my own area of AI based digital pattern cutting is also a possibility but it seems a bit of a cop-out as it's already my major project area... then again maybe it's an opportunity for my personal expertise to be of use to the team... We might want to interview industry people as part of our website research - maybe even v...