This BioBags collection, created by Clara Davis  as part of her training internship at the lab. It is an environmental project about how to replace plastic bags and daily life packaging with biodegradable materials. A plastic bag takes about 450 years to disintegrate in nature. Those three BioBags, made with gelatin base bioplastic are completely biodegradable. It takes about one week to dissolve completely in the water. This project comes as a research outcome of  Biomaterial practices at FabTextiles at Fab Lab Barcelona.

Gelatin base bioplastic is a recipe with 100% natural ingredients : 78% of water, 16% of gelatin and 6% of glycerol. With this recipe you can cook a strong material. The difference between gelatin bioplastic and petroleum plastic is that bioplastic is not long-term resistant to heat (more than 40°) and water (more than one week). That’s why it’s so easy to recycle it.

For now the problem is still the price of creation, too high to considerate the BioBags collection just like simple packaging. It’s costing approximately 80 euros to create one BioBag : price of material, design, machine and time of work. You should know that gelatin base bioplastic takes about one week to dry. A long cooking process before starting to laser cut the BioBag.

The BioBag collection stay at the moment a project between Art & Design but with financial investment we can easily imagine a biodegradable industry coming in a near future.

-> Create your own Biobag

-> Print your bioplastic recipe

-> Learn more about bioplastic

-> Buy a BioBag at Lottozero shop online

This year the team FabTextiles (Fab Lab Barcelona) of Anastasia Pistofidou and Clara Davis participated to the Maker Faire Barcelona 2017.

Maybe you are wondering what is a MakerFaire ? A Maker Faire is a world event gathering makers : creators, innovative craftsmans, inventors and engineers. This Maker Movement is about using technology, creating new ways to produce together, learning how to do it yourself for changing our industry. The first Maker Faire was established by Dale Dougherty, one of the creators of Make Magazine, in San Mateo, California, in 2006. The goal is to introduce to the people the latest inventions and innovations, to teach them how to do it themselves with workshops, to discuss with them about different topics and to allow makers to meet each other and share their knowledge.

  Fab Textiles stand at the Barcelona Maker Faire 2017

For the Maker Faire Barcelona 2017, FabTextiles presented :

• three pieces of the ECOcyborg collection thought by Alex-Murray Leslie, a collaborative work with IED school and FabTextiles (Fab Lab Barcelona)
• a laser cut parametric origami hat and two seamless garment design by Anastasia Pistofidou
• a 3d printed top assembled by Clara Davis
• a bioplastic collection of accessories created by Aldana Persia and Clara Davis

Three looks of the ECOcyborg collection tought by Alex-Murray Leslie, a collaborative work with IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) Barcelona and Fab Textiles (Fab Lab Barcelona). First look, electroluminescent woven shoulder piece on top of a laser cut petticoat. Second look, retro-futuristic biopastic shirt made with ultraviolet colors pigments. Third look, 3d printed chainmail coating dress.

3d printed top, chainmail assembled by Clara Davis, you can follow the DIY on this page.

Bioplastic Collection of accessories created by Aldana Persia & Clara Davis

FabTextiles showed but also shared. On their booth, they revealed to the public The secrets of bioplastic and gave the opportunity to learn how to do it yourself by distributing the recipe used for the Bioplastic Collection. Anastasia Pistofidou animated the discussion about embedding digital and Bio Technology in Fashion and Clara Davis gave two workshops : learn how to fold a stone paper origami hat and create your own jewelry with the bioplastic collection waste.

   Workshops : learning how to fold a parametric stone paper origami hat and creating jewelry with bioplastic collection waste.

Thanks to the FabTextiles team : Anastasia Pistofidou, Clara Davis, Aldana Persia and Sabina Micheli

Fashion needs to be updated! We are making a bespoke program for the new hybrid fashion and textile designers, artists and curious technologists combining the essential tools and knowledge of our digital era.

Lectures :

Hacking the fashion industry  by Zoe Romano

Open source hardware for soft fabrication, by Varvara Guljajeva and Mar Canet

Tutorials :

Computational Couture with Rhinoceros and Grasshopper by Aldo Sollazzo,

E-textiles and wearables by Angel Muñoz and Cristian Rizzuti

Bio couture , Bacteria textile dying and Bioplastics by Anastasia Pistofidou and Cecilia Raspanti

On our JAM you will make groups and collaborate with local and international artists for developing projects of the things you ve learned throughout the week!

Subscribe here!

What do you need:
veneers
textile (denim)
woodglue + brush or paint roller
vacuum press
lasercutter (trotec speedy 100)
rhinoceros
4 buttons (for cling sealing)
rivet gun for buttons

How to do:
Connecting fabric and wood
1. Cut your fabrics and veneers in nearly the same size
2. Brush one side of the wood with the woodglue and put it on the fabric (ensure that the fabric is flat). For a better result we recommend, to do it with the paint roller, so that the glue is very thin and evently distributed
3. Now, place the two materials into a vaccum press and wait until the materials get connected and dried

Preparing the Lasercut
Meanwhile you can create your File for the lasercut. You can do that in Adobe Illustrator (save as DXF) or directly in Rhinoceros. The lines should be colored red for cutting.
You have to think about how you want to connect the bracelet (we choose the buttons).
Our Example, you can download here.

Lasercutting the wooden-textile
1. For a good result (only the wood gets cut) you need the the right power and speed for the lasercut-settings
Here you can see some examples made with the Trotec Speedy 100:

01 1.5mm wood + denim Power:70 Speed:3
02 1 mm wood + denim Power:50 Speed:4
03 0.5mm wood + synthetic fabric Power:50 Speed:5
04 1mm wood + synthetic fabric Power:50 Speed:4
05 1mm wood + very thin synthetic fabric Power:57 Speed:7
2. First do the engraving (the pattern), after, the cutting part (the shape)
3. For cutting you just have to put the power to a higher value ( f.e.: 50 > 90)

Finishing
Now you can finish your piece by attaching the buttons to the blacelet. For that you just need the appropriate rivet gun or tool.

Work and Progress within the Seminar Skin2

Bioplastics Catalogue:

Discover the Bioplastic recipe here

Tests on overlapping layers of bioplastic sheets that are mixed with thermochromic ink.

Tests on adding carbon fibres for conductivity on bioplastic

Bioplastic with different color pigments and amount of glycerol to adjust flexibility

Bioplastic with conductive thread and thermochromic ink

Molding and Casting Bioplastic onto CNC milled wood

Biocouture Catalogue:

Discover the Biocouture recipe here

Methods to combine the Biocouture with different materialsLarge Scale Biocouture growth of 2cm thick (30 days)

Fabricación Digital de Camiseta

Los últimos avances en el departamento de Textiles del Fab Lab Barcelona son el uso de las máquinas de corte láser para la composición de una camiseta de principio a fin.

El primer paso fue vectorizar el patrón deseado, esto significa que pasamos un patrón real a nuestro programa de modelado y a partir del programa empezamos a diseñar nuestra camiseta.

Además de corte de la camiseta y sus distintas piezas, también pudimos introducir directamente un estampado decorativo, que finalmente también fue cortado.

Finalmente sólo hizo falta poner la tela en la cortadora láser y cortar cada una de las piezas para coserlas.

Proceso paso a paso.

Las conclusiones de este proyecto han sido, la rapidez que ofrece trabajar el textil de esta manera y la posibilidad de cambiar de forma rápida y satisfactoria cada uno de los elementos que se están trabajando.
También facilita el poder hacer distintas pruebas de manera rápida.

Una herramienta usada habitualmente en la fabricación digital, es la cortadora láser. Los usos más habituales de esta máquina son cortar madera, acrílico, plásticos…

Otra de las funciones de la máquina, al margen del corte, también es el rasterizado. Ésta técnica también se usa con madera y los otros materiales, sin embargo tiene un efecto muy interesante cuando se usa con textil.

Los textiles óptimos para este tipo de trabajos son; el terciopelo, la piel y el ante.
Los trabajos que se han hecho en el FabLab Barcelona de rasterizado en textil, por Elizabeth E. Fraguada:

La aplicación que se escogió en este caso fue hacer unos cojines, aunque se podría aplicar a cualquier otro soporte como camisetas, pantalones, mantas, alfombras, etc.

Puedes consultar también la web de Jorge&Esther.