Tag Archives: knitting

Building materials made with knitted molds and the root network of fungi

Leave a reply
Caption: A 1.8m high, 2m diameter freestanding structure [mycelium vault], made of the BioKnit mycocrete using knitted formwork. Two people are sitting inside it. Credit: Image courtesy of the Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment.

The molds for the framework were knitted and filled with ‘mycocrete’ according to a July 14, 2023 Frontiers (Pub.) press release by Angharad Brewer Gillham (also on EurekAlert and published July 17, 2023 on the Newcastle University website),

Scientists hoping to reduce the environmental impact of the construction industry have developed a way to grow building materials using knitted molds and the root network of fungi. Although researchers have experimented with similar composites before, the shape and growth constraints of the organic material have made it hard to develop diverse applications that fulfil its potential. Using the knitted molds as a flexible framework or ‘formwork’, the scientists created a composite called ‘mycocrete’ which is stronger and more versatile in terms of shape and form, allowing the scientists to grow lightweight and relatively eco-friendly construction materials.

“Our ambition is to transform the look, feel and wellbeing of architectural spaces using mycelium in combination with biobased materials such as wool, sawdust and cellulose,” said Dr Jane Scott of Newcastle University [UK], corresponding author of the paper in Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology. The research was carried out by a team of designers, engineers, and scientists in the Living Textiles Research Group, part of the Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment at Newcastle University, which is funded by Research England.

Root networks

To make composites using mycelium, part of the root network of fungi, scientists mix mycelium spores with grains they can feed on and material that they can grow on. This mixture is packed into a mold and placed in a dark, humid, and warm environment so that the mycelium can grow, binding the substrate tightly together. Once it’s reached the right density, but before it starts to produce the fruiting bodies we call mushrooms, it is dried out. This process could provide a cheap, sustainable replacement for foam, timber, and plastic. But mycelium needs oxygen to grow, which constrains the size and shape of conventional rigid molds and limits current applications.

Knitted textiles offer a possible solution: oxygen-permeable molds that could change from flexible to stiff with the growth of the mycelium. But textiles can be too yielding, and it is difficult to pack the molds consistently. Scott and her colleagues set out to design a mycelium mixture and a production system that could exploit the potential of knitted forms.

“Knitting is an incredibly versatile 3D manufacturing system,” said Scott. “It is lightweight, flexible, and formable. The major advantage of knitting technology compared to other textile processes is the ability to knit 3D structures and forms with no seams and no waste.”

Samples of conventional mycelium composite were prepared by the scientists as controls, and grown alongside samples of mycocrete, which also contained paper powder, paper fiber clumps, water, glycerin, and xanthan gum. This paste was designed to be delivered into the knitted formwork with an injection gun to improve packing consistency: the paste needed to be liquid enough for the delivery system, but not so liquid that it failed to hold its shape.

Tubes for their planned test structure were knitted from merino yarn, sterilized, and fixed to a rigid structure while they were filled with the paste, so that changes in tension of the fabric would not affect the performance of the mycocrete.

Building the future

Once dried, samples were subjected to strength tests in tension, compression and flexion. The mycocrete samples proved to be stronger than the conventional mycelium composite samples and outperformed mycelium composites grown without knitted formwork. In addition, the porous knitted fabric of the formwork provided better oxygen availability, and the samples grown in it shrank less than most mycelium composite materials do when they are dried, suggesting more predictable and consistent manufacturing results could be achieved.

The team were also able to build a larger proof-of-concept prototype structure called BioKnit – a complex freestanding dome constructed in a single piece without joins that could prove to be weak points, thanks to the flexible knitted form.

“The mechanical performance of the mycocrete used in combination with permanent knitted formwork is a significant result, and a step towards the use of mycelium and textile biohybrids within construction,” said Scott. “In this paper we have specified particular yarns, substrates, and mycelium necessary to achieve a specific goal. However, there is extensive opportunity to adapt this formulation for different applications. Biofabricated architecture may require new machine technology to move textiles into the construction sector.”

The mycelium vault (also pictured above) is a freestanding structure,

Caption: A 1.8m high, 2m diameter freestanding structure made of the BioKnit mycocrete using knitted formwork. Credit: Courtesy of the Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

BioKnit: development of mycellium paste for use with permanent textile formwork by Romy Kaiser, Ben Bridgens, Elise Elsacker, Jane Scott. Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol., 14 July 2023 Volume 11 – 2023 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2023.1229693

This paper appears to be open access.

The new knitting: electronics and batteries

Leave a reply

Researchers from China have developed a new type of yarn for flexible electronics. A March 28, 2018 news item on Nanowerk announces the work, (Note: A link has been removed),

When someone thinks about knitting, they usually don’t conjure up an image of sweaters and scarves made of yarn that can power watches and lights. But that’s just what one group is reporting in ACS Nano (“Waterproof and Tailorable Elastic Rechargeable Yarn Zinc Ion Batteries by a Cross-Linked Polyacrylamide Electrolyte”). They have developed a rechargeable yarn battery that is waterproof and flexible. It also can be cut into pieces and still work.

A March 28, 2018 2018 American Chemical Society (ACS) news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, expands on the theme (Note: Links have been removed),

Most people are familiar with smartwatches, but for wearable electronics to progress, scientists will need to overcome the challenge of creating a device that is deformable, durable, versatile and wearable while still holding and maintaining a charge. One dimensional fiber or yarn has shown promise, since it is tiny, flexible and lightweight. Previous studies have had some success combining one-dimensional fibers with flexible Zn-MnO2 batteries, but many of these lose charge capacity and are not rechargeable. So, Chunyi Zhi and colleagues wanted to develop a rechargeable yarn zinc-ion battery that would maintain its charge capacity, while being waterproof and flexible.

The group twisted carbon nanotube fibers into a yarn, then coated one piece of yarn with zinc to form an anode, and another with magnesium oxide to form a cathode. These two pieces were then twisted like a double helix and coated with a polyacrylamide electrolyte and encased in silicone. Upon testing, the yarn zinc-ion battery was stable, had a high charge capacity and was rechargeable and waterproof. In addition, the material could be knitted and stretched. It also could be cut into several pieces, each of which could power a watch. In a proof-of-concept demonstration, eight pieces of the cut yarn battery were woven into a long piece that could power a belt containing 100 light emitting diodes (known as LEDs) and an electroluminescent panel.

The authors acknowledge funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong Joint Research Scheme, City University of Hong Kong and the Sichuan Provincial Department of Science & Technology.

Here’s an image the researchers have used to illustrate their work,

 

Courtesy: American Chemical Society

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Waterproof and Tailorable Elastic Rechargeable Yarn Zinc Ion Batteries by a Cross-Linked Polyacrylamide Electrolyte by Hongfei Li, Zhuoxin Liu, Guojin Liang, Yang Huang, Yan Huang, Minshen Zhu, Zengxia Pe, Qi Xue, Zijie Tang, Yukun Wang, Baohua Li, and Chunyi Zhi. ACS Nano, Article ASAP DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.7b09003 Publication Date (Web): March 28, 2018

Copyright © 2018 American Chemical Society

This paper is behind a paywall.

Machine learning, neural networks, and knitting

Leave a reply

In a recent (Tuesday, March 6, 2018) live stream ‘conversation’ (‘Science in Canada; Investing in Canadian Innovation’ now published on YouTube) between Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and US science communicator, Bill Nye, at the University of Ottawa, they discussed, amongst many other topics, what AI (artificial intelligence) can and can’t do. They seemed to agree that AI can’t be creative, i.e., write poetry, create works of art, make jokes, etc. A conclusion which is both (in my opinion) true and not true.

There are times when I think the joke may be on us (humans). Take for example this March 6, 2018 story by Alexis Madrigal for The Atlantic magazine (Note: Links have been removed),

SkyKnit: How an AI Took Over an Adult Knitting Community

Ribald knitters teamed up with a neural-network creator to generate new types of tentacled, cozy shapes.

Janelle Shane is a humorist [Note: She describes herself as a “Research Scientist in optics. Plays with neural networks. …” in her Twitter bio.] who creates and mines her material from neural networks, the form of machine learning that has come to dominate the field of artificial intelligence over the last half-decade.

Perhaps you’ve seen the candy-heart slogans she generated for Valentine’s Day: DEAR ME, MY MY, LOVE BOT, CUTE KISS, MY BEAR, and LOVE BUN.

Or her new paint-color names: Parp Green, Shy Bather, Farty Red, and Bull Cream.

Or her neural-net-generated Halloween costumes: Punk Tree, Disco Monster, Spartan Gandalf, Starfleet Shark, and A Masked Box.

Her latest project, still ongoing, pushes the joke into a new, physical realm. Prodded by a knitter on the knitting forum Ravelry, Shane trained a type of neural network on a series of over 500 sets of knitting instructions. Then, she generated new instructions, which members of the Ravelry community have actually attempted to knit.

“The knitting project has been a particularly fun one so far just because it ended up being a dialogue between this computer program and these knitters that went over my head in a lot of ways,” Shane told me. “The computer would spit out a whole bunch of instructions that I couldn’t read and the knitters would say, this is the funniest thing I’ve ever read.”

It appears that the project evolved,

The human-machine collaboration created configurations of yarn that you probably wouldn’t give to your in-laws for Christmas, but they were interesting. The user citikas was the first to post a try at one of the earliest patterns, “reverss shawl.” It was strange, but it did have some charisma.

Shane nicknamed the whole effort “Project Hilarious Disaster.” The community called it SkyKnit.

I’m not sure what’s meant by “community” as mentioned in the previous excerpt. Are we talking about humans only, AI only, or both humans and AI?

Here’s some of what underlies Skyknit (Note: Links have been removed),

The different networks all attempt to model the data they’ve been fed by tuning a vast, funky flowchart. After you’ve created a statistical model that describes your real data, you can also roll the dice and generate new, never-before-seen data of the same kind.

How this works—like, the math behind it—is very hard to visualize because values inside the model can have hundreds of dimensions and we are humble three-dimensional creatures moving through time. But as the neural-network enthusiast Robin Sloan puts it, “So what? It turns out imaginary spaces are useful even if you can’t, in fact, imagine them.”

Out of that ferment, a new kind of art has emerged. Its practitioners use neural networks not to attain practical results, but to see what’s lurking in the these vast, opaque systems. What did the machines learn about the world as they attempted to understand the data they’d been fed? Famously, Google released DeepDream, which produced trippy visualizations that also demonstrated how that type of neural network processed the textures and objects in its source imagery.

Madrigal’s article is well worth reading if you have the time. You can also supplement Madrigal’s piece with an August 9, 2017 article about Janelle Shane’s algorithmic experiments by Jacob Brogan for slate.com.

I found some SkyKnit examples on Ravelry including this one from the Dollybird Workshop,

© Chatelaine

SkyKnit fancy addite rifopshent
by SkyKnit
Published in
Dollybird Workshop
SkyKnit
Craft
Knitting
Category
Stitch pattern
Published
February 2018
Suggested yarn
Yarn weight
Fingering (14 wpi) ?
Gauge
24 stitches and 30 rows = 4 inches
in stockinette stitch
Needle size
US 4 – 3.5 mm

written-pattern

This pattern is available as a free Ravelry download

SkyKnit is a type of machine learning algorithm called an artificial neural network. Its creator, Janelle Shane of AIweirdness.com, gave it 88,000 lines of knitting instructions from Stitch-Maps.com and Ravelry, and it taught itself how to make new patterns. Join the discussion!

SkyKnit seems to have created something that has paralell columns, and is reversible. Perhaps a scarf?

Test-knitting & image courtesy of Chatelaine

Patterns may include notes from testknitters; yarn, needles, and gauge are totally at your discretion.

About the designer
SkyKnit’s favorites include lace, tentacles, and totally not the elimination of the human race.
For more information, see: http://aiweirdness.com/

Shane’s website, aiweirdness.com, is where she posts musings such as this (from a March 2, [?] 2018 posting), Note: A link has been removed,

If you’ve been on the internet today, you’ve probably interacted with a neural network. They’re a type of machine learning algorithm that’s used for everything from language translation to finance modeling. One of their specialties is image recognition. Several companies – including Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Facebook – have their own algorithms for labeling photos. But image recognition algorithms can make really bizarre mistakes.

image

Microsoft Azure’s computer vision API [application programming interface] added the above caption and tags. But there are no sheep in the image of above. None. I zoomed all the way in and inspected every speck.

….

I have become quite interested in Shane’s self descriptions such as this one from the aiweirdness.com website,

Portrait/Logo

About

I train neural networks, a type of machine learning algorithm, to write unintentional humor as they struggle to imitate human datasets. Well, I intend the humor. The neural networks are just doing their best to understand what’s going on. Currently located on the occupied land of the Arapahoe Nation.
https://wandering.shop/@janellecshane

As for the joke being on us, I can’t help remembering the Facebook bots that developed their own language (Facebotlish), and were featured in my June 30, 2017 posting, There’s a certain eerieness to it all, which seems an appropriate response in a year celebrating the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s 1818 book, Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus. I’m closing with a video clip from the 1931 movie,

Happy Weekend!

Two subcultures: science knitters and graffiti knitters, could they come together?

2 Replies

I had no idea that there’s a whole subculture of scientists devoted to knitting. Not just any knitting, science knitting. Thanks to Andrew Maynard at 2020 Science blog (July 25, 2010 posting), I have discovered Woolly Thoughts a website devoted to knitting, crocheting, and mathematics.

In fact, there’s a plethora of websites, blogs, and a subset on Ravelry (social networking for knitters) devoted to science/math knitters, much of which you can find in Andrew’s posting.

One item that particularly my fancy was a piece of ‘illusion knitting’ designed by Alice Bell, a science communication lecturer at the Imperial College of London. Illusion knitting is where the same piece of knitting reveals of one of two different images depending on the angle of sight. Bell’s creation, the Rosalind scarf, can look like stripes from one angle and like a piece of DNA from another angle.

For anyone not familiar with Franklin (from the San Diego Super Computer Center at the University of Southern California web page),

There is probably no other woman scientist with as much controversy surrounding her life and work as Rosalind Franklin. Franklin was responsible for much of the research and discovery work that led to the understanding of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA. The story of DNA is a tale of competition and intrigue, told one way in James Watson’s book The Double Helix, and quite another in Anne Sayre’s study, Rosalind Franklin and DNA. James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins received a Nobel Prize for the double-helix model of DNA in 1962, four years after Franklin’s death at age 37 from ovarian cancer.

Here’s Bell in her Rosalind scarf,

Alice Bell in her Rosalind scarf

This is the angle for the stripes, to see the DNA go to the Feb. 7, 2010 posting on her Slipped Stitch blog or to Andrew’s posting where you can find more goodies like this,

Knitting and crocheting as a means of creating complex geometrical forms has a long and illustrious history. Alan Turing was often seen knitting Möbius strips and other shapes in his lunchtime apparently, according to this 2008 MSNBC [article]. The work of Taimina and others on exploring hyperbolic planes – and their relevance to biology – has been groundbreaking (I know it’s crochet, but Margaret Wertheim’s TED talk on crochet coral and complex math is excellent, [go here]).

Vancouver (Canada) is home to at least two members of another knitting subculture as I found out earlier this year with the publication of a book by two locals, Mandy Moore and Leanne Prain, Yarn Bombing; The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti. Their Yarn Bombing blog features projects from around the world. I took a particular liking to Bee Bombs,

Annie's bee bombs in Amsterdam

I wonder if we could get some science yarn bombs going for the 2012 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting to take place here in Vancouver?