Sewn Circuit

E-Textiles

This e-textile project was the perfect blending of sewing, tinkering, collaboration, electronics, and fun.  Having time to play with the circuits before building the bookmark was very helpful as a reminder of the importance of tinkering with a project to learn valuable lessons on our own.  By having this time to put together different circuits I was reminded of the principals of circuitry that I would need when switching to the conductive thread.  Had I just jumped into the sewing project it might have caused great frustrations to have to sew and re-sew something.  This design choice was a good one for this project.

After tinkering around with the circuits making one circuit then hooking up multiple LEDs in a loop,  we set out to begin our bookmarks.

This became a very collaborative process.  My classmates offered their assistance and help, as we planned our bookmark layouts and designs.  Most of us decided on creating bookmarks that would fold over to cover the electronic aspect of the bookmarks.  When it came time to sew, some interesting things occurred. Consistent with with the Buccholtz et. al. (2014) research findings,  when it was time to begin sewing,   people in my group began to assume historically gendered roles at our table.  One of the male participants declared, “I’m going to need a lot of help with this sewing!” This declaration taken up by a  female participant quickly taking a leadership role, offering to thread his needle and help him and others with sewing.  Buccholz’s study found that “e-textile toolkits offer female youth expanded access to materials and tools, resulting in opportunities to take on project leadership roles in highly technical STEM areas.” I watched as this very thing happened at my table.  At the time I didn’t think much about it, but after reading this study, I realized this very phenomena played out at my table. Buchholz explains that “e-textile toolkits successfully flipped the gendered scripts about who had hands-on access to electronics materials and tools by honoring girls’ historic maker practices and, in doing so, expanded the ways into complex electronics and computing content.”  (pg. 18).  This article combined with the activity helped me to understand the transformative power of how the tools we offer people and children really do matter.  The histories matter.

I learned more about circuits through this project, and I experienced the fun of working with a collaborative group with all different experience levels, it really supported my learning.  I really relied on my tablemates to help me, one even offered me his glasses so that I could see, and when I couldn’t thread my second needle, our “female leader” offered to help.  I created a great book mark that lights up, but more than that I experienced the power of collaboration.  This makes me wonder why traditional classrooms remain so eerily solitary in their design.