Grace Ngai, Stephen C.F. Chan, Joey C.Y. Cheung, Winnie W.Y. Lau
{ csgngai, csschan, cscycheung, cswylau }@comp.polyu.edu.hk
Department of Computing
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Kowloon, Hong Kong
Summary
Wearable computing and e-textiles is an emerging field in contemporary fashion. However, existing technology is so complex that it is neither affordable or feasible for the average hobbyist or consumer. The solution for this problem, presented by the above researchers, is the TeeBoard, a constructive platform that aims to "lower the floor" for e-textiles and explores the possibility of integrating the technology into the education field as a teachable tool.
For e-textile technology to be more widely adopted as an educational tool it should be robust for everyday use and rough handling, it should have large error tolerance, and a shallow learning curve. The current state of e-textile technology does not yet satisfy these requirements.
The researchers set out several goals for their project in addition to solving the above listed problems: 1) capabilities of the materials used should be as close to their electrical equivalents as possible, 2) the construction platform should be able to be used by users of all skill levels, and 3) the platform should be easily reconfigurable and debuggable.
The TeeBoard was the solution they came up with, a wearable breadboard that could easily configured to the user's wishes. The shirt uses a Arduino Lilypad microcontroller for processing of signals and a conductive thread instead of wires to achieve the robustness necessary for everyday wear and tear.
The shirts were used with several test groups. Groups were given simple tasks and then incrementally harder tasks to test the effectiveness of the product. The results showed that the TeeBoard did in fact meet its requirements and students were more interested in computational and electronic designs.
Discussion
This is an interesting concept for more interactive applications of electronic theory. I think the main problem with the A&M program is that application is not stressed in a tactile way. Granted we do use breadboards and circuits to illustrate concepts, but rarely are the concepts illustrated in a way that it would be used in the real world. I would love to see more interactive solutions such as the one in this paper in the educational system.
The only problem I saw with the user study was that it was tested amongst college classes that already had significant background in electronic theory. I would have liked to see them test this product amongst high school settings where students are not as familiar with electronic theory.
I think I agree with you on both points. I would much rather have more project based courses than tests/quizzes. Especially if we did things like this, I think we would learn a lot more.
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