Sep 15, 2015 | By Alec
As women throughout the world will verify, bras are not perfect. They can be uncomfortable, feature straps that dig into shoulders and after a long day quite a lot of sweat can accumulate in them. High time, fashion designers Chromat and technology giant Intel believed, to do something about it. At the New York Fashion Week, Chromat and Intel debuted their 3D printed smart sports bra, that is filled with enough Intel power to sense changes in temperature, breathing and perspiration and will even open or close tiny vents to prevent excessive sweating.
While Intel will be known by all, some of you might remember Chromat for featuring an interesting line-up of 3D printed clothes at last year’s New York Fashion Week as well. However, none of those creations are as smart as these. As reporters over at Refinery29 reveal, this Chromat Aeros sports bra relies on the Intel module Curie, which has sensors and lights that detect sweat and controls a set of minuscule vents. All this is contained within a 3D printed frame, as well as some Lycra and neoprene parts.
Designer Becca McCharen, who is no stranger to 3D printing, justified this cool creation because clothes should do more in the 21rst century. ‘I expect clothing to do work,’ she says. ‘It should respond to the body.’ McCharen also previously designed clothes for a lot of pop stars, including Madonna.
The Curie itself is more than powerful enough for this task, and even so small you can barely see it. The size of a button, this module consists of a 32-bit Intel Quark microcontroller, a six-axis motion sensor complete with accelerometer and gyroscope, as well as an integrated digital signal processing (DSP) sensor hub and pattern matching technology. It also contains Bluetooth Low Energy, 80 kB of RAM, and 384 kB worth of flash memory. It has been specifically developed for wearables, so this smart bra could be transformed into just about any piece of clothing. Perhaps socks for us men? The idea is that clothes can be embedded with health and wellbeing functions, but cool apps for exercising and even for social networks are also definitely options.
And that this Curie is powerful enough, is further emphasized by a Chromat Adrenaline Dress in black, which also features a few 3D printed parts. Made out of neoprene and 3D printed panels that are attached to a carbon fiber framework on the back, this dress gives women a female equivalent of showing their muscles when they are pumped up. 'In action movies, when men feel stressed, they Hulk up and appear very strong, but women don't have that option,’McCharen explained. ‘They never get to show their strength in a physical way.’
The Curie is hooked up to the carbon fiber framework, and whenever high levels of adrenaline are measured (in terms of sweating and high breathing), the panels pop up. The idea is that women can pop up their feathers in tense situations, though that is probably not as useful as the sports bra. However, there is some bad news about these pieces of clothing as well. As the Curie module isn’t authorized by the FCC yet, none of these options will be commercially available for some time, and no date is yet revealed. However, who wouldn’t want perspiration-prevention embedded in their entire wardrobe?
Posted in 3D Printing Applications
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???? In action movies, when men feel stressed, they Hulk up and appear very strong, but women don't have that option? thats just so wrong... its the plot of the movies that forbids the women to hulk up... like men.