An e-Textile Outreach Activity
An adaptable classroom activity designed to introduce students aged 8-14 to e-textiles and basic circuitry.
The activities can be used as standalone sessions to introduce students to the basic concepts of sewing electrical circuits onto fabric, or can be incorporated into wider lessons around electricity, Ohm's Law, and how current and voltage vary in parallel and series circuits.
Step-by-step guides take you through the process of mapping out, sewing and connecting an e-textile circuit to turn on an LED. The three levels of challenge cover how to add control switches or additional LEDs to the circuit.
Activity A: Sewing a circuit to light up one LED
Activity B: Sewing a circuit with a switch to control one LED
Activity C: Sewing a circuit with a switch which controls multiple LEDs
A guide for teachers can be accessed here and contains:
- Full equipment listings
- Links to source all e-textile components
- Suggested possible lesson outline for a 3 hour workshop
The instructions are designed to be ready to print straight away and hand out to students. Samples of the pages are shown, and the worksheets for each activity are available for download below.
All resources designed and made by Imogen Young during a research placement.
Task outline
Detailed overview for each individual activity, demonstrating the e-textile components needed and how they work. A circuit diagram is also provided with accurate footprints of each module to show how to connect the e-textile components together.
Mapping out the circuit
Clear instructions on how to transfer the circuit diagram to your chosen fabric to aid the sewing later.
Close-up photos of each stitch
All steps are shown in close detail with both written and photographic instructions. Each section of the task is broken down to discrete goals - eg sewing the positive "out" of the switch down - which are further broken down to show all stages of progress.