Bringing E-Textiles Into Engineering Education

• In Event: Textile Messages: Dispatches From the World of E-Textiles and Education

Abstract

1. Objective
In the young history of educational e-textiles, most of the discussion to date has revolved around either K-12 students or adult hobbyists. In these conversations, the assumed role of e-textile education is typically geared toward the non-professional. Such focused conversations, however, fail to address the larger potential of the medium by ignoring its role in higher and professional education–especially, engineering education. We feel there would be marked benefits to both e-textile enthusiasts, and to engineering educators, in promoting a stronger role for e-textiles in undergraduate and graduate-level engineering curricula.

2. Perspectives
This presentation will outline several powerful arguments in favor of bringing e-textiles into engineering education. The first section will articulate the goals of giving e-textiles a stronger place in the engineering curriculum. The second section will focus on lore, addressing our own (still early and somewhat parochial) experiences in running an e-textiles engineering course, and what we hope we learned from those experiences. Finally, we'll use the earlier discussion of goals and lore to motivate an exploration of where we believe e-textile research could and should go in the near-term future.

3. Data sources
This presentation includes observations from our initial attempt to base an introductory
engineering projects course on these new materials. The course in question was
a section of the University of Colorado's "Engineering Projects" class, a large first-year undergraduate course that is taught as a collection of smaller, targeted sections. Our own section had eleven students, all engineering undergraduates.

4. Findings
Our experiences in teaching an introductory engineering course through e-textiles were encouraging–the best projects were, in our view, aesthetically compelling, and well-thought-out in design. Moreover, from the intellectual standpoint, both employed challenging materials and techniques. Still, the difficulties that we encountered in teaching the course shouldn't be underestimated. Reflecting on our experiences in the light of the goals that we described earlier suggests a number of themes and research directions for enhancing the role of e-textiles in engineering education (and quite probably in K-12 education as well).

5. Significance
Working with e-textiles could well be viewed as every bit as much a part of higher engineering education as any other tangible, constructive activity. More strongly, we feel there would be marked benefits to both e-textile enthusiasts, and to engineering educators, in promoting a stronger role for e-textiles in undergraduate and graduate-level engineering curricula. This presentation is the first of its kind to outline several powerful arguments in favor of bringing e-textiles into engineering education.

Authors

• Michael Eisenberg, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Ann Eisenberg, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Yingdan Huang, University of Colorado - Boulder