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The LilyTiny: A Case Study in Expanding Access to Electronic Textiles

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James DavisAuthors Info & Claims

CHI EA '22: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts

Article No.: 25, Pages 1 - 8

https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3503579

Published: 28 April 2022 Publication History

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Abstract

The LilyTiny sewable microcontroller was created ten years ago, in an effort to make electronic textiles more accessible. At the time, e-textiles was gaining traction as a means to invite more diverse participation in computing, but financial and instructional barriers stood in the way of broader adoption. In addition, there existed a scaffolding gap between projects involving lights, batteries, and thread – and those requiring programming (i.e. leveraging the LilyPad Arduino and/or additional sensors or outputs). In an effort to expand access to electronic textiles, we designed the LilyTiny, an inexpensive, pre-programmed sewable microcontroller which controls assorted LED patterns, and which later became available for purchase through SparkFun. Alongside the LilyTiny, we released a free workshop guide for educators which details five low-cost activities that can be taught without any prior electronics experience.

This paper summarizes our development of the LilyTiny and companion curriculum – and reflects on whether we met our stated goal of expanding access to electronic textiles in the decade since. We share and discuss some measures of impact, including a survey of derivative products and a multi-year analysis of sales data from the LilyTiny’s sole distributor SparkFun Electronics.

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Cited By

Kivuva FEverson JMontes De Haro CKo AStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)Cultural-Centric Computational EmbroideryProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630818(673-679)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630818
von Mengersen B(2024)Textile Technologies in STEM EducationLocating Technology Education in STEM Teaching and Learning10.1007/978-981-97-1995-2_11(161-186)Online publication date: 24-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-1995-2_11

Index Terms

The LilyTiny: A Case Study in Expanding Access to Electronic Textiles
1. Computer systems organization

Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.

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cover image ACM Conferences

CHI EA '22: Extended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 2022

3066 pages

ISBN:9781450391566

DOI:10.1145/3491101

Editors:
Simone Barbosa
PUC-Rio, Brazil
,
Cliff Lampe
University of Michigan, USA
,
Caroline Appert
Université Paris-Saclay, France
,
David A. Shamma
Toyota Research Institute, USA

Copyright © 2022 Owner/Author.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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Published: 28 April 2022

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Cited By

Kivuva FEverson JMontes De Haro CKo AStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)Cultural-Centric Computational EmbroideryProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630818(673-679)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630818
von Mengersen B(2024)Textile Technologies in STEM EducationLocating Technology Education in STEM Teaching and Learning10.1007/978-981-97-1995-2_11(161-186)Online publication date: 24-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-1995-2_11

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