LEWISTON — Angela Sheehan’s idea is to find a softer side of technology.
“We’re starting to see more and more of it in the apparel industry,” Sheehan said. “There are more and more examples of technology going into clothing and footwear. At a basic level, you see it with the light-up shoes, but now it has become much more prevalent.”
Sheehan, a graphic designer for Timberland Shoes in Dover, N.H., hosts a blog at Soft Circuit Saturdays where she plans and builds experiments that combine technology with clothing. Blog topics include electronic embroidery and crochet stretch sensors.
“I sort of stumbled into it in college, with a class on physical computing,” she said. “That’s taking digital art and technology away from a computer and keyboard and putting it into everyday projects.”
Her display in Lewiston will include sock puppets she modified to sing using sound chips from greeting cards and a hula hoop sound system she created. She created a jacket with a small microprocessor attached and conductive threads sewn along parts of the jacket. When the hoop, which is covered in conductive tape, touches one of the threads, it creates a sound. Swiveling the hoop around her waist creates one sound, while twirling it around her arm creates another.
She’s working on a hoop that displays a text message sent from a telephone as it twirls but said it won’t be ready in time for the Lewiston fair.
“There are ways to use a computer without technically using a computer, and that’s what I’m exploring,” Sheehan said. “As an idea, it’s been steadily growing for the last five years. You can buy special threads now and special fabrics that used to only be available to designers and manufacturers. That’s where it becomes interesting to me.”
She’s attended the Maker Faire in San Mateo, Calif., for the past three years — as a spectator. She took her musical hoop with her last time, she said.
“It’s hard to be stuck in a booth with so many wonderful things to see,” she said. “So I kind of wandered around from display to display and talked to people and showed off what I was doing.”
Soft Circuit Hula Hoop Experiment: Sound from Angela M. Sheehan on Vimeo.
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