Lesson video

So welcome to another DT lesson today with me, Mr Telfer.

In today's lesson, you might get some real nuggets and gems of information that you had no idea about, and hopefully, it broadens your horizons into different careers and opportunities, and things that you can do with material.

So today's lesson is going to be all about technical textiles.

We're going to be looking at some materials that you've probably never heard of before, where you're going to realise how important they are to our daily lives now, and how important they could be to your future.

It's pretty theory based today, so you're just going to need your exercise book, some pens and pencils, you may need some paper to draw on, but yeah, that's about it really.

Now the main topics we're going to be looking at today, are modern and technical textiles, which I think's really interesting.

We're going to look at protective materials, so have a little think what you think that's going to be about.

We're going to look at the future of fabrics, and then I'm going to give you a little challenge on fastenings towards the end.

Okay, so stick with me, woo hoo.

Now the key words I'd like you to take down today, are modern materials, and that's a material that's been engineered to improve the property, you'll understand more.

Composite material, well a composite material is a combination of two or more materials that have got different properties, but then when you put them together, you get something amazing, okay? Fastening, so that's a item that holds our garments together, so I'll let you put that in the back of your head, what's a fastening? And lastly, smart materials.

Now smart materials are intelligent materials, essentially, and what they do is react to when they sense something changing in our environment.

For example, if water drops on it, it will change its shape, or change its colour, okay? So that's a smart material.

So first we're going to look at modern materials.

Now like I said to you earlier, a modern material is one that's been engineered over a period of time to improve its properties.

Now, as our technology improves over a period of time, i.

e.

when you're growing up, modern materials are going to improve as well, because obviously, the processes and the technology is going to be enhanced, and it's going to be able to develop, and continue to develop what a modern material can do for us, okay? So we're going to start looking at some modern materials in the world today.

So has anyone heard of a composite material before? No, you haven't heard of it in science? No, so a composite material is basically when we take two or more materials, we bond them together, and then the new material that we make is even better than the ones beforehand, so they've got better properties, and we use it for a specialist job.

So you could think of something like concrete, for example, that's a composite material, we could use cement, sand, and those aggregates, we would mix it all together, and then we get concrete, which is solid as a rock.

So, that's an idea of a composite, or plywood as well, you can mix plywoods.

Now some composite materials are used to replace metals, yeah? And why do you think that would be? Pause the video, have a discussion, write down some answers, and we'll come back in a moment.

So we'll just use the idea of a car when we're talking about these composites still.

Okay, so properties of composites will be design flexibility, it's lighter than metal, it's durable, and its strength to weight ratio.

Now what we mean by design flexibility is thinking about the modern cars, or the designs and the aerodynamics, making those curves and shapes out of metal might still be proving difficult, but when we're composite materials, we can form them, wrap conform essentially, or mould them into any shape that we want.

Near enough nearly any shape and any size.

The fact that composites are lighter the metal as well is beautiful, 'cause that means our vehicles won't be heavy, saves on fuel, saves on emissions, no, that's not a bad thing at all.

Saves on shipping fees as well.

Now durability, what I mean by that is, okay, our car's going to be outside in the snow, in the rain, in the wind, and the dust, all sorts of stuff.

By using composite materials, they actually don't rust, so it's not a bad thing, it's a great idea.

I wish my car was a composite.

And strength to weight ratio, so what I mean by that is composite materials, I could have a little piece like this, it's super light, but it's going to be super strong,.

Composites are like bear hugs, okay? So the first composite material we're going to look at is glass reinforced plastic, or GRP.

More than likely, you're going to know something called fibreglass, it's exactly the same thing.

Now, the properties of fibreglass, or why we use fibreglass, is because it's a really strong material, it's really light, light as,.

And it's easy to repair it as well, so if it damages, cracks, breaks, easy to repair.

Now, you see on the images there, there's a bathtub, so most of us have the fibreglass bathtub, or basin in the shower cubicle.

Or if you play tennis you might have some fibreglass rackets, now what I'd like you to do, is just have a quick moment, pause the video for a minute, and try and jot down some other items that you believe are made from fibreglass, and we'll check your answers in a moment.

So what did you write down that you think it's made from fibreglass? I'm going to tell you a bunch of products now that you probably didn't get.

You could have had the helicopter rotor blades, yeah, they're made out of fibreglass.

Have you seen the big wind turbines out in the fields for wind energy? They're made out of fibreglass as well.

Canoes, surfboards, slides in a park, or water slides, they're made out of fibreglass.

Yep, there's quite a few things, oars as well, when you're rowing your boat.

Yeah, when you're rowing a boat, that's fibreglass.

Some cars are using, yep, there's a plethora of items made out of fibreglass, that you're going to be around every day.

The next composite material I want to introduce to you is carbon fibre, I'm sure some of you have heard of carbon fibre, probably seen it in a video game when you're kitting up a car or something, eh? Now, carbon fibre is a textile that's woven in a certain way and then an epoxy resin's added to it, and that is baked and it makes it super hard, like, it is so strong, okay? But it's super light as well, which is a bonus.

So carbon fibre is actually an improvement on fibreglass, so if you have fibreglass here, carbon fiber's going to be up here, but it's going to be more expensive, obviously.

So I'm going to set you a little task similar to what you've done before, with a bit of research as well.

So I want you to think about what sports will be using carbon fibre.

So what I'd like to do now is go away, do a little bit of research, you can either collect images, or you can just write down your information that you found out, or collectively what you're going to look for, is where carbon fibre is used in the sporting industry.

Now one thing that I find really, really, really interesting like respectfully interesting, is how much carbon fibre is used in the Paralympics, so that's the only clue I'm going to give you, it's something to look at.

Press pause now, get your information, and when you come back, we'll continue with today's task.

Or lesson.

So welcome back, I hope you haven't printed stuff out already, just on the first task, you know we've still got a lot to do today.

So quick true or false question, you know I enjoy these, so, fighter jets and the panels of race cars are built from the same composite material, true or false? What do you think? You say true? You're wrong, no, no, no, it's false.

So, although a car, a race car and a fighter jet both do use composite materials, a fighter jet tends to use ones called an alloy.

So it's still composite, but it actually includes metal in there, okay? Something for you to think about.

So now I'm going to introduce you to some protective fabrics.

Just want you have a quick think in your head, what comes to mind when you think about a protective fabric? You may know some of these already, like in terms of what they do, but you may not know how they work, or their actual names.

So the first one we're going to look at is Nomex, now Nomex is a fire resistant material, it's not fireproof, it's fire resistant.

Now it doesn't drip and it doesn't melt, which is great.

How it operates, or how it works sorry, when it's subjected to really intense heat, the fibres thicken and it closes the gap, so no heat can get through, so just like that.

No he can get through, no flames can get through, and it protects the person wearing it.

Okay, so think about firefighters, think about people in the army, or the RAF, they will definitely have clothing made out of Nomex.

And also, Formula 1 racers, I say as, F1 racers, they wear two layers of Nomex as well, because, as we said, it can withstand intense heat.

Now typically, we go on holiday and we're sitting in 30, 35 degrees heat, oh, it's hot, it's hot.

How hot do you think you can get inside the cockpit of a race car? Have a think.

Yep, if you said 30 degrees, you was wrong.

If you said a hundred degrees, your wrong, it can get to 50 degrees though.

50 degrees, that is sweltering.

So obviously that is a reason why they need Nomex clothing, because they will be constantly subjected to that kind of heat and temperature, that wouldn't be good for your body, okay? The next material I want to introduce you to is Kevlar, which is actually a liquid, but it's been processed into a way to create a fibre, which can then be used to make a material.

Now, Kevlar has got some super protective properties.

Once it's been spun, the things become super tight, so if you're looking at my hands like that, so tight you can't push anything through it.

That's what Kevlar's like, which gives you the properties of making it super strong, and you cannot cut through it.

It also makes it heat resistant.

Beautiful material, now, bearing that in mind, you know it cannot be cut, Can you think of any products that you think Kevlar would be suitable for? Pause the video, write down some ideas, and I'll see you when you get back.

So I'm anticipating that you said the obvious answer, body armour, or bulletproof vest, or stab proof vest, but Kevlar is also used in the bodies of aeroplanes , we use it in our car breaks, and if you go sailing, your sails are going to be made out of Kevlar as well.

So, there you go, bit of new knowledge for you.

Tell you, modern materials and composites and everything, I love materials.

So next we're going to look at biometric sensors.

This isn't really the fabric, it's more about the technology that's woven into the fabric, okay? So these sensors are put in and they send back information to a computer, or whoever's at base monitoring you, and your vital statistics.

So that could be the amount of oxygen that's in your blood, it could be your heart pulse rate, or if you're in an incident or an accident, or you have to eject, it could read your body movements before and there after the incident as well.

Now, bearing that in mind, if you was a race car driver, we're doing a lot of racing today.

If you was a racer or a pilot, yous had to eject, think about how this information could save your life.

Pause the video and just write down a few sentences and ideas, how biometric sensors could save someone's life, and then we're going to continue.

Welcome back, I'm sure you just got some good answers there about biometric sensors, that you can share amongst yourselves.

Next I've got another true or false question for you.

So a motorbike race suit, you normally don't do like this, has got a built in airbag, is that true or false? It's false isn't it? No, it's actually true, you can go online and you can see them in action, okay? So the leather suits have got an airbag built in, so when you're riding your bike and you come off your bike and hit the ground at a certain speed, it implodes and then you go poof.

It's actually quite cool, go and have a look, okay? So, fabrics, told you, fabric, textiles, it's more than just the boring stuff isn't it? No, it's quite interesting.

So now we're going to look at one of my favourite things which is smart materials, but for the purpose of today, we're going to call it smart fashion, and you'll see why, okay? Now, I said to you earlier in the key words, that a smart material is the material that changes or reacts to its environment or a stimuli.

Okay, so you should remember that.

So what we're going to do now, is a quick task, I'm giving you four different types of smart material, what I want you to do is write these names down, and then try to guess what you think the stimuli is for these materials.

So write these down now, pause the video, have a conversation, take a guess, and then I'll come back to you in a moment.

Welcome back, so just to give you an introduction into these smart materials, phosphorescent material is one that absorbs the light and then radiates it, okay? So when it absorbs it and then radiates it, it's like a glowing item, okay? Do not confuse phosphorescent with fluorescent, they are different, similar but different, okay? Next we've got thermochromic, well thermo is thermal, you know, heat, temperature, so thermochromic is something that reacts to temperature.

The next one we've got is hydrochromic, again hydro, water, like hydro-power, so hydrchromic is something that reacts to water, and photo, so we know that photo's all about light, like photosynthesis, so photochromic must be something that's reacting to light.

If you got those right, excellent, if you haven't, just write them down quickly, and then we'll move on.

So now we're going to get into the good stuff, e-textiles, or you might hear it, electronic textiles, or you might call it smart textiles, or smart fashion, or smart fabrics, a few different names get coined for these things, but we're going to call it e-textiles for the moment, okay? Now imagine, this thing here, or this thing here, being able to just be gone and be ingrained into your clothing, okay? That is what e-textiles is all about, it's having digital components embedded into your clothing, so it could be your GPS tracker, it could be a microphone, it could be Bluetooth, it could be a battery, all sorts of things, it's quite amazing.

Now, e-textiles are designed and manufactured to make sure all these technologies are put into one place, I could just put on a jumper and I've got everything I need.

You know, it's a greater function, rather than it just being an item of clothing, it's an item of clothing that does X, Y and Z.

Pretty amazing right? I think so, personally.

Now it says here, the purpose of a smart fabric, is to provide added value to the user, whether for pleasure, performance or safety.

Okay, pleasure, performance or safety.

Now, I just want to tell you a story before we go on to the next task.

There's a item called a SoundShirt.

Look it up, I think it is absolutely fantastic, it's been designed for deaf people, and what they do, so a orchestra can play their music, and their speakers are designed to pick up the sound and transmit the sound through a computer system, which then sends a sense message out to the shirt, and the shirt pulses and plays in different places, so you can't hear the music physically, because you're deaf, but you can feel the music.

So when the drums are boom, boom, boom, you're getting a bigger base on your stomach, and when it's the violin it plays on the chills in the neck.

Go and look it up okay, SoundShirt, I think it's one of the best inventions in e-textiles, personally, but there's loads of you.

But bear that in mind anyway, because now you've got a task coming up.

Thinking about what you've just learned about smart materials and the electronic textiles, consider what functions would you want under these different headings? So for your pleasure, for help with performance and for safety, what functions would you want your items of clothing to perform? Press pause now, and then we'll check back in a moment for the answers.

Welcome back, so under pleasure, I was thinking if I was going to a party or a holiday, something that's fun.

So I'd want something that glows in the dark, maybe some glow in the dark clothing, or my watch face, or maybe glow in the room, I don't know, little accessories.

Glow in the dark paint's a good one as well, do your face paints, great.

We could have colour changing swimwear.

So you know, I might be on the beach and my shorts tiger print and I go to the water and they go all or blue or black, I don't know, something like that.

On colour changing glasses, well I've actually got some of those, they don't change colour per se, but the lens goes from clear to sunglass when I'm outside, so that's for my pleasure, it's actually for my health as well but, hmm, you know.

Now under health and performance I was thinking we could have some materials that have a memory shape alloy in them.

So if I need to perform a certain way, it won't let me go beyond it, protecting myself from an injury.

It's a great idea, I should invent that actually, why not? Medical readings, so maybe it can read my heart rate, or my oxygen levels, what else could it read? Loads of different things.

PFR for asthmatic, so their peak flow rate, their breathing, that's a very important one you know.

Weight and sleep tracker as well, we've all got those things on our wrist now, where we're stepping, what are they? Pedometers, step on, stepping trackers you know, so imagine that just being built into your trousers legs, or into your trainer, easy.

Now for safety, I was thinking to share our location, so maybe we've gone somewhere, we're not too sure where we are, tap our arm and then it sends a message to my dad and he can come and pick me up.

Or a temperature regulation, you know, just thinking about the F1 racers, if their body's are getting too hot in that cockpit, they could pass out, they could have a seizure, who knows, it could be fatal.

So temperature, making sure we can regulate our temperature, or maybe it could warm us up if we were in a cold space, or cool us down if we we're over warm.

That's a smart one, and just like the motorbike, could have an airbag built to our clothes, or fireproof clothing obviously, you know, that would be important, definitely.

So now we've looked at some modern materials, we've looked at smart materials, we've looked at electronic materials.

I want you to start thinking about how we could put all of this together to actually help someone else.

That somebody would be me by the way, okay? There's Mr Telfa, playing his favourite sport, American football, high intensity, very dangerous, you break some bones, bruises here and there, but it's fine.

You know we've got a lot of protective equipment, we've got our helmet, we've got our gloves, we've got our under layers, we've got our shoulder pads, so they do their best to look after us.

But, just imagine if you could improve everything about our kits.

You know, if you could introduce some electronic textiles, or you could introduce some smart materials, that's going to help me understand the issue, or somebody on my sideline be able to visually understand something, how could you improve it? I mean one idea that I had already, was that I could use thermochromic lines, so, if on my strip, if I was getting too hot, I have played in some heat in summers, it gets hot, I'm dripping.

Now if I was getting too hot, to the point of combustion, maybe my uniform would change colour, and my coach on the sideline could see that I'm too hot, call me off, cool me down, and put someone else on in my place.

You know, it's a simple idea, but it's an effective idea, which will stop me from dehydrating, and probably fainting, could be saving my life, all right? So, what I want you to do, is think about my kit, or the kit of an American football player, and think about how we're going to redesign it, using smart and electronic materials.

Now you can either, just write down your ideas, or you could sketch out the bits and pieces that annotate them, but justify your ideas.

So make sure you're explaining why you would do something, why you would use that material, what are you trying to improve? Pause the video, and I'll see you when you get back.

Welcome back, I hope you got creative with that one, 'cause I really hope you want to look after me and my health, and I look forward to seeing those answers shared online later on.

Now we're going to look at mechanical fastenings, which is the last part of our lesson, okay? Now, if you've done the food technology with me, you would have heard me talk about standard components, and fastenings are the textiles standard components.

So it's just something that's used to complete the construction of a textile product, for, so it could be, as you see on the picture, a zip, or my drawstring, my buckle on my watch, you know, that's a fastening.

So anything of the sort.

So our last task is a little bit of a competition, now I want you to sketch as many fastening components as you can, now as much as I've demonstrated three here, my actual sheet of paper, I had about nine or 10, so you can probably try and get at least nine, if not more.

Then what I want you to do is write a brief explanation about the item, and list some products where it's being used, okay? I also want you to say why it's being used.

So if I talked about a zip for example, a brief explanation of it, I could talk about the material it's made out of, so is it plastic or metal, I could explain that it's made from teeth that lock together.

I could explain that you've got open ones, that are on a jacket, or closed ones, that are like on your jeans.

And, well I've already told you some products there, jackets, jeans, bags, and if I was going to like say, why would I use a zip? Well I'll probably take into consideration that some people with disabilities, might struggle to do buttons, and a zip's a lot easier and a lot quicker as well, okay? So what I'd like you to do, is pause this video, complete this task, and once it's done, I'll see you when you get back.

Welcome to the end of another fantastic lesson, well done.

You know, I know I've given you a lot of knowledge today, hopefully a lot of new knowledge as well, that you've had to absorb.

What I will say, is I'm really keen to see how you have updated, or improved, my sports kit, using smart materials and electronic textiles.

So please ask a parent or a responsible adult to share that work at the Oak National Twitter, and make sure you hashtag in L, W, O, Learning with Oak, I will be there to see the work, and you know, I tell you, I'm very excited to see to be honest, I'm very excited.

So until our next time, we good, and I'll see you soon.