This week's assignment was to integrate a soft circuit with an actuator. I chose to start working on my final project, based on what I had done for week 5, my soft pressure sensor. For this assignment, I used my soft sensor as an analog input for a Lilypad Arduino USB controller.

I used the same copper coated vinyl and pressure sensitive fabric for making my sensors.

Because we needed to try soft-hard connections, I used solderable copper thread, as a way of connecting the circuit. Here's a diagram of what it should look like. Once I had an idea of the schematic, I started sewing and soldering the tracks. For me, the hardest part was working with the conductive thread, because it is composed of a lot of small copper fibers which intertwine amongst each other while sewing, making it incredibly hard to sew.

Here's a picture of the fully sewn circuit:

Alexandra and I, we are both working with motors in this assignment, because we want to compare the best kind of motor for our final project. I am testing micro servomotors, while she is testing DC motors.

The benefit of working with a lilypad is that it allows me to program it as an Arduino, within the Arduino environment. In order to program the servo, I needed to install the “Servo.h” library from the Arduino Library manager. Here's the code I'll be using for the soft circuit:

#include <Servo.h>
 
Servo Myservo;
int degree;
int Pressure =A5;
 
 
void setup() {
  // put your setup code here, to run once:
Serial.begin (9600);
Myservo.attach(11);
Myservo.write(90);
}
 
void loop() {
  // put your main code here, to run repeatedly:
  analogRead(Pressure);
  degree=map(Pressure,0,1023,0,180);
  Serial.println(Pressure);
  Myservo.write(degree);

The servomotor changes position according to the pressure applied to the sensor.

Even though this assignment is useful for my final project, it wasn't my original plan. I had been trying to create a soft circuit using the vinyl cutter and a small PCB. I generated the schematics in Eagle. The problem was that the machines in the lab had broken down, and I ended up having to work on the aforementioned circuit. I still plan on implementing this idea, because I have to generate a board like this one for my final project with Alexandra. so I'll update my advances on this page also.