rmurphy

In researching the Chinese finger trap, Tsitsi and I noticed that it had many names including Chinese handcuffs and Mexican handcuffs. We thought that by scaling up this gag gift we could turn the derogatory meanings on their head.

The handcuff is a simple weaving of semi-rigid strips into a cylinder. When the cylinder is pulled, it is lengthened and thus the circumference shrinks and grabs your finger.

Instead of trapping two fingers of one individual, we want to prolong an interaction between two people (handshake). The handshake’s purpose is to convey trust, balance, and equality. BUT, there are various peculiarities of the handshake. One common question regarding the greeting is, how long should the handshake last. The handshake cuff is the third party accepting all blame for the extended hand shake. The two participants must work together to end the greeting and if it does go a little long, it was the device’s fault not either participants.

Please see Tsitsi’s blog for more info.

I don’t have any documentation of my (new) material. As presented in class, I used the d.i.y. shopping bag material (the material used to make my opensource wallet) as a start.
The shopping bag is made into a new material by simply ironing four to six plies together. The plastic bag melts at a low temperature and the multiple plies fuse together making a material very similar to tyvec (strong, waterproof, and kind of ugly).
The first thing I wanted to try was to create this plastic/tyvec-like material imbedded with other elements. I first imbedded the shopping bags with rubber bands. This was not as successful as I imagined it would be. In order to make it work, you must stretch the rubberbands across the ironing board between the plies of shopping bag. Then you have to iron them together as a single sandwich. The problem is that the rubberbands tend to snap at a lower temperature than that which melts the bags. I got one of these to work, but that was after trying it many times. (I will post photos of the finished product later today)
The second material was made by imbedding pipe cleaner into the shopping bag. This worked far better than I expected. I simple placed the pipe cleaner in rows between the shopping bag plies and ironed the construction together. The end result is a thick plastic which can be formed 3 dimensionally. Accidentally, I learned that if the pipe cleaner/shopping bag construction is not thoroughly heated, the pipe cleaner can be removed, and the tyvec-like material will have perfect air pockets (perhaps an insulator?).
The last material was an attempt to make a water-proof double-sided felt. I ironed synthetic felt on either side of 4 plies of shopping bags. The material required higher sustained heat, but once I had played with it, I could make it easily. Because there are two pieces of felt, it can be different colors on either side.

I WILL POST PHOTOS LATER TODAY