The one with the original switch !

The idea behind this sport wear shirt is a switch located on the chest part that would sense the heart beat rate of the person and transform this beat into an electrical signal going through the whole shirt.

The electrical signal recognized by the fabric of the shirt will then be communicated visually through a wave of color coming from the source of the beat: the heart of the person. Each wave going from the heart to the extremities of the shirt will represent one heat beat, and will start to appear when the person’s heart beat crosses a certain rate that will turn on the switch and liberate the waves. The color waves will then appear like a radar signal starting with a red color at the source and fading into a dark blue color. The waves will then fade away and disappear when the heart beats slow down and cross again the limit rate that will turn the shirt’s switch off.

The switch itself will be linked to the heart beat sensor and will be composed of a micro chipset that will open and close the circuit depending on the heart beat rate of the person. When the circuit is open, the heart beats will then be transformed into electrical signal that will be communicated to the fabric through micro wires going though every parts of the shirt allowing the display of the colors.

This shirt’s color display allows people to show their efforts and represents also a sort of celebration of life and fitness activities. The shirt expresses the power that we all have within our bodies, this power that keeps us alive and allows us to do all the activities we do everyday. Also, this shirt is a reminder that the heart is something that we must take care of in order to keep on building and enjoying our lives. Each color wave is an expression of life from our body that we could not visualize that clearly before.

Sincerely,
David Baldy

The "smart" sock concept

Baldy David
5668085
Dart 339
Second skin and soft wear




The idea of a “smart” wearable artifact represents clothing that would be receptive to my emotions as well as my body’s physical states. This “smart” clothing would almost be alive and fit to my body just like a second skin that I would not actually feel. The clothing would provide me with heat or freshness depending on my body’s temperature, protect me from outside elements such as wind, rain, snow or even fire, fit automatically to the morphology of my body, provide me with comfort and ease in my movements, and finally a “smart” clothing would also offer me additional general information about my heartbeat rate, my body temperature, etc. as well as interactive color modifications.

The artifact that I have conceptualized is a “smart” pair of socks that will provide you with all the features mentioned earlier and much more.
First of all, the sock, when first worn, will automatically resize itself to your foot size so that people when purchasing the product will not have to worry about which size to choose. Also the fact that the sock fits perfectly to your foot will offer you a better comfort when wearing it. Then, the material used to make this sock would heat up or cool itself down depending both on your feet temperature and on the outside layer’s temperature. The sock will also be water proof thanks to a innovative fabric that would transform its fibers when entering in contact with a wet element. Depending also on the general temperature, the fibers of the fabric would enlarge or shrink themselves in order to provide the inside of the sock with less or more air circulation. In order to maximize your comfort when walking, running or during any of your activities, the sock will sense the most important pressure points of your foot on the ground and thicken its fibers on the pressure points in order to ease your foot on the points where most pressure is applied. The fabric used to make the sock will of course be as soft as cashmere, will absorb sweat and as mentioned before allow air circulation. Regarding to the information provided by the sock about your body health, the sock will have an lcd water proof screen located above the ankle level which will display the number of steps walked during your day, the number of calories burnt during a chosen period, your body temperature and your heartbeat rate.
This concept pair of socks would make your everyday life better allowing you to forget almost everything about foot caring during your busy days. The socks will warm your feet or cool them, protect them from water if you walk by mistake in a hole during a rainy day, or if your trekking in the mountain, absorb your sweat avoiding bad smell, provide the best air circulation for your feet to feel like being bare, fit to your size and reinforce itself on pressure points depending on your walking habit or on the type of activity you are doing (walking, jogging, jumping, sprinting, etc.)… all these features and more to make your everyday activities effortless for your feet and in the best conditions possible.

Objective/Subjective objects

Summary

Summary of the essay Why we need things
By Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The essay “Why we need things” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, deals with our society’s materialistic needs that we have developed for centuries of consumption. Csikszentmihalyi talks about what objects and artifacts represent to us within our lives.
Objects appear today to be used and consumed more for the psychological need they generate more than for a physical or survival need. Actually, we live in a society where the simple fact of surviving is already a past story, and now we need always more not only to bring us comfort, but moreover to give us an order for our mind to follow. Our mind is very complex and it appears that we really do need objects to rely on in order to regulate our emotions and give our mind something to interact with. Without objects our mind would be lost and always searching for a path to follow, or any kind of orders made by humans. Also, if our mind could not find anything to refer to, we would lose notions of time, identity, memories, etc. The author states that artifacts bring us three important features that are power and status, a time mark that allows us to remember our past, and keep track of our present and future projects, and finally, artifacts are a symbolic representation of our belonging to this society and our relationships with other people within this society. Humans are always searching for a way to show their superiority through better and better technologies and also objects that are dangerous for mankind but also for the whole planet and its ecosystem. The perfect example could be illustrated by all those weapons of destruction that humans have produces for all these centuries. Not only these objects, but also everything we produce deteriorates in part our planet and its natural resources. Therefore we have to find a way to satisfy our needs for objects while caring for our environment and find a balance between these two ideas Regarding to women’s needs, the author notices that globally objects that women need are related to seductiveness, fertility and nurturance. It has been shown that over history, humans have used their discoveries such as bronze, first in order to satisfy their own pride and to show their power than to use them for purely functional purposes. We identify our social status and who we are to what we consume and the objects we own. Csikszentmihalyi states that depending on our generation, sex and age period, the needs and objects that we use as symbols are different. For teenagers, music and visual media are more important because they create a relation with their current concerns, allow them to be active, and regulate their mood. However, for parents, objects such as paintings, sculpture, cars and other valuable objects are important to express power, accomplishment, wealth, etc. For grand-parents, these ideas of power and status get less important compared to their families and past memories. Therefore objects such as photographs or symbolic objects of their past memories are the most cherished ones. So we can see that through time within our life, our needs regarding to objects change giving us a reflection of who we are and what we care for. Objects are also kept in order to remind us of our family and the people we are related to. It appears that these objects gain more importance though the years as we get old. Also, the artifacts we own all over our home represent depending on our age, our ideals in life, personal values, themes such as care, nurturance, ethnic origins, religious identity, etc. Finally Csikszentmihalyi states that people who do not have a lot of belongings, objects, etc. are people who do not have social lives, friends or human relationships. To conclude, the authors notes that on the whole, objects are meant to transform the instability of our conscience into something rigid and ordered. The simple size of our being is not enough to express ourselves and that is why we need artifacts to expand ourselves, show our status, keep track of time, our social life and relationships with the others. The author defends his idea about people without objects being anti-social people, by giving examples of certain community or kind of people who can afford living deprived of belongings and objects. I would say that I found this idea of non being materialistic plausible in our society. I do not think it is impossible to live within a society without a lot of artifacts surrounding us. I think we can have friends and have a normal social life without owning all our past in our home. I guess the author was in this case focusing especially on the American society without really analyzing what was going on all over the world. I have personally met people who have normal social relationships without being materialistic and focusing their attention more on realizing their future projects than buying objects. I do not think that only a few ethnies or communities are able to live a non-materialistic life and I think it would be to fast to generalize about consumerism.