Something New, Something Old: Combining Conductive Fibers and Classical Tatting Techniques for Lace Structured Circuits

This project applies lacemaking to circuit design as an applications-based focus at the intersection of traditional craft and emerging e- textile materials. Tatting is a particularly durable method of creating lace by the use of sequential half-hitch knots and loops. This type of lace is fairly stiff, consisting of self-knotting rings and chains that form a design. There are similarities in structure of a knot around a core thread to insulation around a wire. With the use of cotton thread knots around a core conductive thread, the structure of the lace becomes a wire. Similar knotting can be employed to sheath existing wires and fibers. The combination of tatting technique with conductive thread and advanced fibers extends existing exploratory work to unify electronic components for complete lace fabric circuits. The organic structure made of free-standing lace serves as an integrated textile alternative to circuit boards and existing sewn or woven e-textile fabric. The unique lace form factor reveals potential for aesthetically appealing integration with or appending existing garments to add interaction and functionality while also protecting components from strain. Similarly, the lace made with conductive thread on its own can be used as an e-textile with sensing and output functions.

Name thesis:degree_name

Bachelor

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Ahteck, Amanda Shayna

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Boriskina, Svetlana

Statement dc:rights

• Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
• Copyright retained by author(s)

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/151821

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/151821