Fabrickit: DIY wearable computing

This just got released at Maker Faire NYC on Sunday: a starter kit for making your own wearable computing, from a new company called Fabrick.it. The kit is broken down into modules or "bricks" for everything from light-up LED's to rechargeable batteries, all linked together with attractive sewable, washable, and solderable conductive silver ribbon.

Perhaps more valuable than the components themselves will be the instructions and tutorials for putting things together, and the community that should develop around DIY wearable technologies.

Winner of the Media Ecology Association's first Neil Postman award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity, Douglas Rushkoff is an author, teacher, and documentarian who focuses on the ways people, cultures, and institutions create, share, and influence each other's values. He is technology and media commentator for CNN, and has taught and lectured around the world about media, technology, culture and economics. His new book, Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age, a followup to his Frontline documentary, Digital Nation. His last book, an analysis of the corporate spectacle called Life Inc., was also made into a short, award-winning film.

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floraldeoderant

raise your hand if you want to be a proto-gargoyle!
*oooh memememe*
gorilla

It seems to be just LEDs, the power supply, and connectors. That makes it rather limited. The LilyPad seems to be a more mature and capable system.
elfspice

the cool part is it uses silver wire, which is more corrosion resistant and more attractive than copper. and yes, all i see is connector, wire, battery, led. but have a bit of imagination, how hard would it be to switch that LED for a controller chip, ir sensor, mic or a switch or something. or a camera?

sad bit is that if you try to go through a TSA checkpoint… if it’s less bling and more geek they are gonna grill you for sure. what’s missing from this kit is woven fabrics with embedded silver wires with insulation that you can use to route power and signalling around a piece of fabric by some method or other placing junction points. it could be like ripstop with the crisscross nylon threads but instead of nylon, silver coated in a thin layer of polypropylene or nylon. hell it could even be fibre-insulated and outwardly look like a thick thread (like i said, ripstop).

actually thinking about it, i bet lurex fibres could conduct power, or if not, they could be engineered to conduct power. of course aluminium isn’t gonna last that long, and who’d notice if it was silver sandwiched in there rather than aluminium heh.
Anonymous

It looks really nice, and is no doubt wearable, but I’m missing the computing part. It’s not wearable computing, just wearable. LED bling, perhaps.
foobar

I wonder how long you could power a TV-B-Gone like device on one of those cells…
netsharc

Next on Fox News!!! Suicide bomber caught trying to board plane!!!Officials say bomb smallest yet they’ve ever seen!!! But first, GoldLine, buy gold!!!
Anonymous

Don’t fly through Boston, I’m just sayin…
rushkoff

Could you imagine?
nixiebunny

Pretty neat stuff.

I just wish they hadn’t made the connectors so symmetrical, when it’s apparent from the + signs that they can be connected backwards.

There’s an art to designing stuff that can’t easily be damaged by the user.
PaulR

Er, this is quite a few steps from wearable computing. It’s cabling, a battery, some LEDs. The cabling’s nice though.