John Paul George & Me

Interactive wearable musical instruments prototype

Constantinos Miltiadis, Selina Reiterer, Anna Maragkoudaki, Achilleas Xydis

Apr 6, 2015 prototype

John Paul George & Me is a collection of interactive wearable musical instruments for kids. Each T-shirt represents a specific instrument and all together form a rock ensemble. Through the seemingly magical clothes that produce sound by touch, the project brings to children an interactive musical game, encouraging and stimulating their musical interest as well as collaboration with each other to perform music. The project was developed by textile designer Selina Reiterer and computational designer Constantinos Miltiadis for exploring playful applications of smart materials and interactive wearable technology.

The project includes three T-shirts, a microcontroller with a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) module, and a mobile app.
The three individual T-shirts were inspired by and designed after the standard rock trio representing a guitar, a bass, and a drum set. Each shirt has a distinct pattern, based on the attributes of the instrument it represents, which each shape forming a uniform conductive region sensitive to touch. The patterns were silk-screen printed on plain T-shirts with electrically conductive paint, a flexible, washable and non-toxic chemical mixture.
In the back of each garment is a removable pocket with an Arduino microcontroller that receives touch signals from each shape through conductive thread.
The touch signals are then sent wirelessly via BLE to a mobile application which triggers different audio samples corresponding to each garment-instrument. Multiple T-shirts can be connected to a single mobile device, or each band member can use their own. The device can be connected with headphones and external speakers to amplify the sound output.