Maple Leaf Changing Colors – Wearable and Soft Interactions

Concept

I wanted to use thermochromic paint and a circuit heating element to turn a maple leaf from green to Yellow/Orange/Red. I was inspired by Autumn leaves and the maple leafs ability to change color.

Experiments and Test Pieces

I started simple with a black poly blend cloth, conductive thread and thermochromic paint.

I used the lilyPad to trigger the color change

I moved to more complex forms with conductive thread.

I realized that when thread touches the current does not heat up evenly and that is why with the flower I tried a loop

My attempt to make two pieces work in one circuit

Then I tried with the maple leaf and conductive fabric. I wanted to see if I could get the conductive fabric to switch two colors (Yellow and Red)

Using two colors did not work out the way I wanted. This is why I decided to stick to one color at a time.

I tried using the paint on four cotton fabrics to see what the leaf would look like

I laser cut the colored fabric and conductive fabric.

I ironed the conductive fabric onto the maple leaves and painted them with thermochromic paint.

Painting with thermochromic paint-

Sadly the conductive fabric did not work as well as I hoped. This is why I switched to conductive thread. This worked out great, but the point where the veins met heated up very quickly and started a fire.

This is why I switched to a loop stitch.

I had to switch to denim because the black fabric was a poly blend that caught on fire.

Creating the Final

Paint the laser cut leaf shape with thermochromic paint, you can use a heat gun to fasten the drying process.

Create a loop using the conductive thread and power the circuit to see if it works.

Then make the switches with a smaller maple leaf

The circuit I used looks like this-

The bigger maple leaf is the heating unit, the switch is the smaller maple leaf. The switch and heating element are on the front side of the design. All the thread and circuit are on the back.