Planet Arduino

Jacquard looms revolutionized the weaving process by independently controlling each heddle’s position. That made it possible to weave complex patterns. But modern Jacquard looms are very expensive, because they require a solenoid or other means of actuation for each and every heddle. Lea Albaugh and her team at Carnegie Mellon University found an affordable way to build a Jacquard loom from 3D printer parts — including an Arduino-based controller.

The key development for this Jacquard loom was a special bistable switch for each heddle. Those switches keep their heddles in the position in which they were last set. That makes it possible to set the heddle positions sequentially, instead of simultaneously with a multitude of solenoids. All of the heddle positions can be set by a single solenoid, which slides back and forth across the loom. This keeps costs down and makes it possible to build a Jacquard loom for about $200 using common 3D printer components.

The frame of this loom was built using aluminum extrusion and 3D-printed brackets. The linear rails and stepper motors are the same type that you would find in a 3D printer. The controller, a RAMPS 1.4 shield on an Arduino Mega board, is also typically used for 3D printing. The Arduino receives G-code commands from a connected computer, which monitors the loom through a commodity webcam running OpenCV computer vision software. While the loom still requires hand weaving, the automated heddle positioning allows for the quick and accurate production of complex patterns by hobbyists at home.

The post Weaving just got a lot better thanks to this Arduino-controlled Jacquard loom appeared first on Arduino Blog.

While you might have never considered the idea, looms—especially the punchcard-driven Jacquard loom, which helped inform both Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage’s pioneering work—are an important part of computing history. As reported here, Victoria Manganiello and Julian Goldman have created an awe-inspiring ode to this computing heritage in the form of a handwoven tapestry that constantly changes the way it looks, aptly named “Computer 1.0.”

The tapestry, which was recently on display at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City, stretches nine meters in length and features tubing woven throughout. An Arduino actuates pumps and valves to produce familiar patterns in this tubing with blue-dyed water and air.

These patterns soon become abstract and perhaps more open to interpretation, though with more development it’s noted that images and even smartphone-readable designs could be possible. 

Be sure to see the short demo of this incredible installation in the video below! 

A handwoven textile activated by computer code, Computer 1.0 explores connections between weaving and technology. For the project, Victoria Manganiello invited designer Julian Goldman to collaborate on designing and programming a pump controlled by Arduino microcomputers to move precise sequences of air and liquid through the approximately 2,000 feet of tubing woven through the cloth. The movement of the air and liquid evokes traditional weaving patterns such as bird’s eye, monk’s cloth, and twill. And the operating system—the computer and the pump—is not kept out of sight in the service of the woven screen and the pixelated patterns that run across it, but rather are an integral part of the work; nothing is hidden.

Manganiello’s textile reflects and expands on the ob­scured history of weaving and coding, calling attention to the “under-over, under-over” movement of thread becoming cloth that originally inspired the “zero-one-zero-one” of binary code. The jacquard loom of 1801, which used punch cards to program the movement of thread into increasingly complex woven patterns, is a direct, though frequently forgotten, ancestor of modern computers.