Open Source Hardware

During this Assignment, I worked with Wei and Liane and our project was to digitalize the weaving loom.
Our idea was to make the machine to be able to make different pattern not only one.

How the weaving loom works:

The yarns are crossed and the machine ensures that the yarns go over and below alternate straight yarns so that they make up to a fabric.
The loom holds the yarns under tension to prevent them getting entangled.
The straight yarns are called Warp and they are wound on the beam. The cross yarns are called Weft.
The shuttle moves one side to another and after each movement, the warp yarns are moved up and down so that on its return trip, the shuttle moves under the yarn it moved over on the earlier pass.

So our idea was to move the warp yarns not as a group but each thread individually so that we could create a pattern. So we thought to create to “layers” of warp yarns. A group or “layer” that we be stable and not move and in between each of them will be a movable warp. So that level 0 will be the level of not movable yarns and the movable yarns will move in level +/-1.
For this, we used servo motors.

Since the movement of servo motors is rotary, we thought to attach an arm which is able to bend and create an up and down movement ( which is the one we need).
In the picture below in illustrated better.

A thread is attached to each upper part of the arm.

Digital Design Files for laser cutter. I took this file from a presentation of Darci Simpson

List of materials:
Wood for the frame
Thread
5 Servo motors
Arduino Mega
Resistor
Button
Wires for connection
PC

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PRRkiqh3cp3tapRHDOddgJMC1tJoigc6Mw/view

Webpage for miniloom referations: http://www.instructables.com/id/FABfiber-Mini-Loom/

For copyright issues I would not like to share the lasercutt folder, which can be found in the website shared above