Carnegie Mellon University senior David Perry contemplates how fabric will move in the future.
Not just the way clothing can drape a body or how curtains billow in a breeze, but how technology and electronics can change the way we think about clothing and material.
"The current state of wearables is there are a lot of actuators mounted on the body. They're like little motors that can do some motion, but it's usually pretty limited," said Perry, whose self-defined major — applied craft of contemporary kinematic systems — weaves together the intersection of textiles and robotic systems. "I'm trying to figure out how we can use robotic tools to extend classical hand crafts."
His most recent research explores the form and motion possible in robotized garments. So, for example, what would happen if a swarm of robots manipulated fabric around a person?
"The goal of this project is to think of what would happen if we move actuators off the body, to overcome the limitations of on-body motors," he said. "It's been interesting as a speculative project."