Internship

SUMMER INTERNSHIP
PROJECT - I
Dhyan Suman
Interaction Design - 09633004
IDC, IIT BOMBAY
Under Guidance of:
Mr. Dhaval Joshi (Designer Researcher)

Dhyan Suman | Summer internship | IDC IITB
Acknowledgement
I would like to acknowledge the support of all those people
who were involved with me in my project and made it work
out in a very successful manner.
First of all I would like to thank my parents for their love,
blessing and support and encouraging me to give my best
all the time and providing everything, such as money, to
buy anything that are related to this project work and their
advise, which is the most needed for this project.
My warm thanks to Anirudhha Sir and Ravi Sir for letting us
to go ahead and do a self- sponsored project and all IDC
faculties for their support and guidance.
To my guide Mr. Dhaval Joshi for his valuable guidance
and direction through out the project period.
Last but not the least, GOD for providing me strength when
things were not going well and motivation to go on.

Synopsis
The Summer Internship is the first project of your second
year at Industrial Design Center, which offers a student an
opportunity to learn, hone and display the design skills in a
real life situation. In a period of 4-6 weeks, the student with
guidance from faculty and external guide, strives to offer a
comprehensive solution to the need.
This Summer Internship was a self-sponsored project,
which was carried out under guidance of Dhaval Joshi, a
Design researcher in field of Interaction deign. The project
aimed to understand and explore the basics of electronics
using various textile and non textile materials.
Working on this project required me to be self-disciplined,
organized and motivated, since it is very difficult to work
when there are no constraints with timings and no one to
tell you what to do.

Contents
1 Exploring ways of interacting (project 1)

1.1 Project brief and scope..........................1
1.2 Approach................................................2
1.3 Secondary research...............................3
1.4 Material sourcing....................................6
1.5 Learning electronics...............................7
2 Computing for socio-economic development (project 2)

2.1 Introduction to ICTD...............................20
2.2 About MSR Summer School...................21
2.3 ICTD projects by TEM MSR...................22
2.4 Projects..................................................24
3 Conclusions........................................................29
4 References.........................................................30

Dhyan Suman | Summer internship | IDC IITB 1
1-Exploring ways of interacting
1.1 Project brief and scope
With getting into Interaction in IDC, I always thought that
I would try mixing technology with textiles during my extra
time, but could never make it. Summer internship was the
opportunity for me to explore this field and since I am from
non-technical background, I had to start from the basics.
The project brief was to understand, learn and explore
the basics of electronics, so that I could be able to make
working prototypes for my projects in future.
The project provides great scope for experimentation
and innovation; a good opportunity for exploring different
materials and techniques.
It also gives an opportunity to research about the ongoing
experiments in related field, become literate to the
technical language, and to learn some basic coding for
your experiments.

1.2 Approach
The first task for any project is to research, study what is
the present scenario in this field. This is an important phase
in project life cycle, in which the project focus was realized
and basically established a direction of the project.
Next phase involved developing the skills; understanding
of working of electronics.
Material sourcing was carried out in local markets of Delhi
and Bangalore, were explored to find the options available
for project.
In the next phase, explorations were carried out. Due to the
experimental nature of this phase, it was a good learning
experience. Small working projects were developed in the
last phase of the project.

1.3 Secondary research
The field of smart textiles is very new in India and there are
barely any firms working on this field. So doing a secondary
research was the most appropriate option given the 4 weeks
time.
The once I came across were
1) Talk to my shirt:
This site is dedicated to Wearable Electronics in the purest
sense: Textile based, Clothing and Fashion Accessories.
That’s all. If a new product claims to be Wearable
(Electronics) but does not meet this criteria, it will not be
included in this site. Portable (Electronics) does not mean
Wearable (Electronics). talk2myShirt is the ‘missing link’,
the worldwide communication platform to enable such
collaboration.
2) Plusea:
This site has DIY (Do it Yourself) projects on wearable
technology which require a reasonable understanding of
electronics and circuits.
Calle Rosenqvist, Beat Dress (photo by Johan Sundell)

3) HIgh-low tech:
High-low tech is a collaborative effort of faculties from MIT
Media labs, working on wearable textiles. The faculties
involved are Leah Buechley (Assistant Professor of Media
Arts and Sciences, MIT Media Lab), David Mellis
(Graduate Student of Media Arts and Sciences, MIT Media
Lab), Emily Lovell
Lab), Hannah Perner-Wilson
Lab), Bonifaz Kaufmann
(Visiting Student of Media Arts and Sciences, MIT Media
Lab).
4) Fashion & Technology at the School of Arts and
Communication at Malmö University:
The course explores the field through a study of clothing and
style as socio-cultural communication and an investigation
of how emerging technologies can assist in personal
expression. After that, practical workshops invite students
to craft their own prototype.

5) Cute Circuit:
CuteCircuit is a fashion company based in London that
designs wearable technology. CuteCircuit products
are innovative intelligent clothing that integrate new
functionalities into fashion through the use of smart textiles
and micro electronics. CuteCircuit is the first company to
merge wearable and telecommunication technology to
create emotionally rich experiences for users in the fashion,
sport and communication industries.
One of Cute Circuit’s products, the Hug Shirt, was
honored as one of the Best Inventions of The Year by
Time Magazine. This same product was also awarded
the First Prize at Ciberart Festival in Bilbao, Spain.
CuteCircuit work is frequently featured in books on design,
art and innovation, publications include: World Changing,
Fashioning the Future, Smart Materials in Design,
Fashion and Architecture, Sex Design, and Designing for
Interaction. Many of CuteCircuit products have also been
published on magazines and newspapers worldwide, such
as TIME Magazine, ELLE, Design Matters, Stuff, WIRED,
The Daily Telegraph, The Times, the Financial Times, and
CNN. CuteCircuit was featured in the special issue on the
American Avant Garde by Surface Magazine. The recent
book Fashionable Technology, prominently features all of
CuteCircuit’s work to date.

1.4 Material sourcing
During the secondary research, I came across through
materials which were suitable for my project; Conductive
thread, conductive fabric, conductive sheet (velostat).
These materials are flexible, washable as a polyester fabric
and sewable, even with sewing machines.
I tried few manufacturers in India, but it seemed impossible
to find these materials in India and ordering form US would
be time consuming and expensive.
Most of the material related to electronics were sourced
from S.P. Road in Bangalore and in Old Delhi.

1.5 Learning electronics
Repairing fuse at home was the only thing I have done so
far in electronics and I needed much more to learn to make
prototypes in future. So starting with a beginner’s kit was
not a bad idea.
I used a kit for control-less robots by using a combination of
digital and analog electronic circuits. The kit contained all
the necessary electro-mechanical components to start with.
By using the same fundamental concepts of electronics,
we could control behaviors for our robot. These behaviors
can consist of path tracing, clap sensing, obstacle avoiding
etc.
Later I explored the function of Arduino, a single-board
micro controller and a software suite for programming. The
hardware consists of a simple open hardware design for the
controller with an Atmel AVR processor and on-board I/O
support. The software consists of a standard programming
language and the boot loader that runs on the board.
Arduino hardware is programmed using a Wiring based
language (syntax + libraries), similar to C++ with some
simplifications and modifications, and an Processing based
IDE.

Starting from lighting up an LED on a bread board and
learning basics simultaneously, I moved further with more
complex circuits. In this process I learnt to read a circuit
diagram very well, which initially I found very confusing.

Further the projects included things like capacitors,
transistors, LDRs, DC motors etc.
Images: Top left - a circuit when triggered turns the LED
on for sometime.
Bottom left - A circuit for a robot which runs when there is
light.

A clap activated LED circuit, which turns the LED on for
sometime when clapped.

A clap activated robot, which runs forward when clapped.
The role of IC is very important in the circuit for such
project.

A robot with IR (infra red) sensor pair. The IR LED and
IR photodiode help the robot to follow a path (black line /
white line).

Arduino project began in Ivrea, Italy in 2005 to make a device
for controlling student-built interaction design projects less
expensively than other prototyping systems available at
the time.
It is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based
onflexible,easy-to-usehardwareandsoftware.It’sintended
for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in
creating interactive objects or environments. Arduino can
sense the environment by receiving input from a variety
of sensors and can affect its surroundings by controlling
lights, motors, and other actuators.
There are lots of reading material available on Internet for
learning coding for Arduino and few open source projects.
Asusualthefirstprojectwastosay“helloworld”byoperating
an flashing LED, using code.

Before starting with project, an Arduino requires to be
installed on your computer and then some changes in
settings. The projects done on Arduino are usually known
as sketch.
Images: Top left - a sketch of pulsating LED on arduino.
Bottom left - a sketch of a traffic light signals. The timing
of the LEDs is controlled by the coding done on arduino
software.

A sketch of interactive Traffic light signal, in which when
the button is pressed, the arduino reacts by changing the
state of the lights to make the cars stop and allow the
pedestrian to cross safely.

A sketch to use a string of LEDʼs to make an LED chase
effect, and on the using the concept of arrays in coding.

It is an extension of the earlier sketch of LED chase effect
with addition of the potentiometer. By turning the knob of
the potentiometer, we can change the value of ledDelay
and speed up or slow down the effect.

A sketch where the LEDs’ colors slowly change from one
to another, making your own mood lamp.

After gaining knowledge in basics of electronics, I was
trying with incorporating SMDs in fabric, by weaving
insulated thin wires to create a matrix. There were lots
of trial and error in this project. The Idea was to have a
flexible LED screen on fabric, on which display can be
controlled by arduino. If conductive yarn/fiber were used,
the final sample would be washable, and soft.
Image: Top left and bottom- a trial structure and working
of LEDs for weaving the SMDs.

2-Computing for socio-economic
development
2.1 Introduction to ICTD
Information and Communication Technologies for
Development (ICT4D) is a general term referring to the
applicationofInformationandCommunicationTechnologies
(ICTs) within the field of socioeconomic development or
international development. ICT4D concerns itself with
directly applying information technology approaches to
poverty reduction. ICTs can be applied either in the direct
sense, wherein their use directly benefits the disadvantaged
population, or in an indirect sense, wherein the ICTs assist
aid organizations or non-governmental organizations or
governments or businesses in order to improve general
socio-economic conditions. In many impoverished regions
of the world, legislative and political measures are required
to facilitate or enable application of ICTs, especially with
respect to monopolistic communications structures and
censorship laws.
The concept of ICT4D can be interpreted as dealing
with disadvantaged populations anywhere in the world,
but is more typically associated with applications in
developing countries. The field is becoming recognized
as an interdisciplinary research area as can be noted
by the growing number of conferences, workshops and
publications. Such research have been spurred on in part
by the need for scientifically validated benchmarks and

2.2 About MSR Summer School
The Summer school on computing for Socio-economic
Development was organized and financed by Microsoft
Research India, especially the Technology for Emerging
Markets (TEM) Group at the IISc. The school had lots of very
interesting lectures and discussions from researchers in
field of ICTD and had exciting group works which consisted
of field work on the streets of Bangalore.
TEM MSR India:
The main goals of the TEM group are to understand
existing and potential technology users, to design and
evaluate systems and to collaborate with NGOs. Ed Cutrell
is actually the manager of the group, he replaced Kentaro
Toyama who went back to the U.S. to work on a book on
global development.
results, which can be used to measure the efficacy of
current projects. Many international development agencies
recognize the importance of ICT4D.

1) Text-Free User Interfaces
The goal of this research is to understand, devise and
implement design principles such that a non-literate person
can, at first contact with a PC or phone, immediately realize
useful interaction with minimal or no assistance.
2) Tools for K-12 Teachers
Like collage - The tool enables teachers to display digital
scans of textbook pages along with digital multimedia in
an interactive fashion. For example, an English teacher
teaching a chapter called “Banyan Tree” can show pages
from the text and in between the pages s/he can present
images and videos of a real banyan tree.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/india/projects/
edulab/collage.html
2.3 ICTD projects by TEM MSR

3) Simultaneous Shared Access- Multipoint
They are working on a project where we provide each
child with a mouse and cursor on screen, thus effectively
multiplying the amount of interaction per student per PC,
for the cost of a few extra mice.
edulab/multipoint.html
edulab/cloze.html
http://www.microsoft.com/multipoint/mouse-sdk/
4) Rural Microfinance and IT
They are conducting primary research on understanding
the ways in which rural and urban low-income households
access and use financial services from formal and informal
providers.
5) DVDs for Education
A very interesting project! They are developing applications
for interactive DVDs using the menu system from ordinary
DVDs for content. So they put for example Schools
Wikipedia on a DVD, so you can access Wikipedia with
just a DVD player + TV.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/thies/
ictd10-abstract.txt
6) Everyday mobile use in the developing world
Their project explores the diversity of mobile use in settings
where the mobile is the primary ICT, while identifying
generalizable patterns and trends.
7) ICTs in urban slums
This work explores the adoption of information &
communication technologies in the context of urban slums
in Mumbai. They are conducting ethnographic research
amongst ICT-based business like mobile phone stores,
cyber cafes, PC assembling units and computer training
institutes to map the ecologies of mobile phones and PCs
in these communities.

8) Digital Green
Digital Green is dedicated to improving the social,
economic, and environmental sustainability of small farmer
livelihoods. They aim to raise the livelihoods of smallholder
farmers across the developing world through the targeted
production and dissemination of agricultural information
via participatory video and mediated instruction through
grassroots-level partnerships.
9) Mobile-phone-enabled banking and payments
The project involves looking at a range of existing and
proposed m-banking and m-payment solutions across
countries,understandingtheusabilityofm-banking systems
by low-literate clients, as well as assessing the social and
economic context and impact of the new channel on low-
income households.

2.4 Projects
Through out the 15 days of this summer school we had
very interesting talks by people who have been working in
this field of ICTD, like:
Revi Sterling about ‘the history of development theory and
practice’.
Aishwarya Ratan about ‘the Mozambican cashew industry’
and ‘Portfolio of poor’ (Being poor is a triple “whammy”
for these people, it’s not just their low income, it’s as well
the uncertain timing of cash flows, the irregularity and
unpredictability of income, which makes every days life
hard for these people. An other problem is, that financial
instruments don’t address these people.).
Nimmi Rangaswamy was speaking about slum ecology.
Revi Sterlings talk was about advancement through
interactive radio (community based radio).
Michael Best topic was “Rich digital media as a tool in post
conflict trout and reconciliation.
Jonathan Donner topic was “A review of the research on
mobile use by micro and small enterprises”.
Indrani Medhi talked about everyday life in rural village,
and about her experiences on the field.
Kentaro Toyama talked about “Ten myths of ICT4D”.
Joyojeet Pal talked about “Disability in the Developing
World”.

In the beginning we did small group discussions on the
goals of development generally and why to use ICTs for
development. We examined development practice through
a paper/case study and discussion with faculties.
In our field work we went out in small groups of three,
where we did quantitative as well as qualitative interviews
with low income workers in Bangalore. Based on our one of
qualitative interviews, we had to make a poster.
In a talk by Geeta Menon, she told us about the life in urban
slums, to prepare us for our visit in a slum. In small groups
we visited different slums and had the chance to speak
with the people about their lives, their worries.

The school focused quite a lot on the research part of the
ICTD.WehadlecturesbyIshaRayandNimmiRangaswamy
about the essentials of qualitative methods for ICTD
fieldwork. Nimmi Rangaswamy told us about qualitative
data analysis and Aishwarya Ratan about working with
quantitative data, statistical methods like Hypothesis testing
and also about impact evaluation. Based on these talks we
had group work of coming up with a methods we would
use for this research, why and how we would design the
research overall for a given research question and to come
up with research proposal based on your prior work or the
field work done at summer school.
We also had talks by people who were actually researchers,
but have been contributing a lot in the development of the
low-income group in developing countries.
Sean Blagsvedt talked about Babalife and Babajob. This
is an social networking tool that connects job seekers
from India’s large informal sector to middle- and upper-
class Indians looking to hire maids, cooks, drivers, security
guards, construction workers, and other wage laborers. It is
employment-oriented networking with a social conscience
and a practical function.

Rikin Gandhi told us more about the “The digital green
story”.
Solomon Jaya Prakash told us about “Building infrastructure
to support low-income workers”. It was mainly about
LabourNet, a social enterprise which aims at improving
earning opportunities,workingconditions,skillsandsecurity
for workers in the unorganized sector, who constitute over
90% of India’s workforce.

3-Conclusions
The exposure in the field of electronics has improved my
skills and has developed confidence in me to try out new
ideas.
The Summer school was a good learning about how people
have and we can use the information & communication
technology for development of our country people, making
their lives better. It was a fantastic experience. I have
learned a lot about ICTD generally and especially how to
do research and case studies in that interdisciplinary field.

4-References
http://www.arduino.cc/
http://ict4d.at/
http://www.lessemf.com/
Mike McRoberts, http://earthshinedesign.co.uk/
ASKManual/
http://www.talk2myshirt.com/blog/
http://www.plusea.at/
http://hlt.media.mit.edu/?p=5
http://we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2007/08/
lenna-truncale.php
http://www.cutecircuit.com/

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