My first paper prototype combines paper engineering, soft circuits and a new idea. When thinking about my project I imagine the future in 50 years, when climate change has progressed to create temperature extremes and air pollution issues. I want to investigate the way in which we might adapt our clothing and fashion items to address these climate and environmental shifts.
Hand held fans are traditional in many cultures where people have had to live in warm climates. They provide man made cooling and comfort when it is very warm out. I wanted to use this object as a template for a new kind of fashion and comfort accessory. I imagine a fan that would turn on when you unfold it and sense the particulates in the air and change a series of LEDs to indicate the relative air quality near the user. As the air gets worse, the fan's led pattern will be more beautiful, brighter, more vibrant. I imagine the fan will look amazing in the very polluted central valley of California and look very simple and plain in the clean sea air of Honolulu, Hawaii.
My current prototype is a proof of concept of a switch which turns an LED on when the fan is held in the hand. It was constructed with one LED, conductive thread, copper tape, a removable 3V battery, wood and paper.