 So we right here at the ID Tech Act show and who are you my name is Topher Anderson, and I'm a textile engineer here with ZSK So what is ZSK? So ZSK creates different embroidery machines for customized applications So e-textiles applications, composites applications, different high-tech applications that might use different types of textile engineering or flexible substrates So this is an e-textile machine So this is a traditional embroidery machine that we've converted into different types of e-textiles to be able to run different samples from Flexible circuits to different types of sensors. So you've converted a textile machine To work with all these sensors Can you stuff the machine? Yes, sure So how do you get all this stuff happening in there? So what we have here is we have a capacitive touch sensor This is a self-capacitance sensor and what that does is that allows us to detect the capacitance of a person touching it So this creates a keyboard that somebody could play We also have a conductive path that travels up through the individual e-textile and that is terminated and connected automatically through the board So what we're trying to do here is to create a single step manufacturing process to be able to create the sensors The connections and routing and then also to connect them automatically to the board So there's no post-sauce. But you're not able to do all this for this machine, right? All of that's done with this machine right here That's it All of it is just with this machine that way there's no soldering or cut out or anything else with it And it's real? Yes So we have a functioning demo over here of this piece and so what we have here if you play the piano Here a couple different sounds throughout the pieces each one has its own pitching note Showing that all these capacitive sensors are functional Connected and terminated into the board and this comes off exactly how you're seeing it And you can put it on a pillow You can put it on a pillow, you can put it on a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, the technology doesn't matter doesn't Preliminate different types of base materials and what happens with this one? So in this one right now hold this up for you this one We're using LED sequins so we have technology that allows us to place sequins down and Sequins are exactly what you would think on like a ballerina dress like kids dress And so with this we have a whole bunch of different sequins that we can put LEDs different electronics on and that allows us to create a very Very flexible substrate. Where's the electronics? So the electronics are built into these tiny little sequins right here that are stitched into the piece And then we have two terminals for battery right now But that could be some other type of customer So you said this machine does everything really? like What's the material in here and where do you put it in machine and how does it get down and everything in here? So here we're using a silver coated nylon by Madeira It's a company that we've worked with a lot on different conductive threads and that seems to run very well on our machine So what we do is we have our thread base over here with a bunch of different colors I think on this machine we have 12 some of our machines go up to 24 And we can take one of these and I think it's right in the middle there You'll see that's the conductive thread so the one that's maybe this one correct that one is a conductive thread Yes, it's just it's just acts like a thread it acts like a normal thread And that allows us to use the traditional processes for embroidery to be able to do Stitching and to be able to create different centers and connections And but the PCB you have to put it manually later The PCB is the only manual part that you have to put so we create a little textile jig and that allows us to lock Our PCB down and from there on out it does the rest of the stitching automatically We do over on the other side I can show you some of that Because if you want to put it on the clothes you want to have something very compact if it's PCB right absolutely So I can actually show you on this one we have So on this one we have a smaller board that we designed in-house and this board is optimized for embroidery Yeah, and then on top of that we have up here You'll see small little LED sequence again similar to the other technology But as long as the chip can be mounted on to a secret and we can place that down and connected electrically Very reliably so what does it do on off so on and off here? And this be able to set a capacitive set to be able to test and reset this little game And then what happens on this game? It says you tap over here on the hand and that's going to start this game And it says press the top left red Triangle and once you do that it gives you one further in the design that you have to follow through to be able To get to this end of the design so a simple little game just detailing how we can embroider different types of connections Well, what are you doing with this the seat? so another one of our technologies that we use does tailored fiber placement or tailored wire placement and this technology is a little bit Different than the previous embroidery machine that I showed you and this allows us to zigzag over a thicker Conductive material or a tube or carbon fiber or something that is in general too thick to run through the top of the machine And so with that we're able to create composites or different types of structures e-textiles thick wires Ethernet cables materials again that you could never run through an embroidery machine itself And what is this this is stylish and what does it do? So this is a project that we worked on in collaboration with the school And what happens with this jacket each one of these is a connective snap Whenever you snap that in that allows a connection to be made and that allows different sounds to come off Sounds sounds and then up here We also have a hat that we had worked on and this has the LEDs built directly into the hat and so that's a lot Halloween you could use that for Halloween for however you want to use it So what is this off? Can we hear it or so the sound let me check if the speakers in here? I think the speaker needs to be recharged on this one But we might get that down later, and then you could just close one button And it makes an animal sound that corresponds to that button. Yes. That's awesome. Cool. So where are you based? So our main company is based over in Krefeld, Germany. I run a Facility out in Seattle to be able to do different prototyping or work with customers on their unique designs to see if it's feasible for our technology But all the machines all the technology is developed and built over in Germany so it does I mean there's like what's it called some kind of Where people work on different the hacking room hackathon sort of hacking that's kind of how I've set it up mass production also So we have the machines that are here all very small or smallest machines We have machines that go up the entire size of a factory floor and that those are the more the machines that use for production level not Prototyping nice. What is this one do so this one is another example of LEDs built into in this case a sweatshirt And this one has different LEDs that we can change different positioning different light brightness settings And that allows it all to be put into a single garment What is this so over here? We have a foam and leather So this is a thicker material and what we're able to do here is this is more more used for Automotive industry so we're able to do automotive grade stitching around the outside for decorative And we also use our different chip technology to be able to integrate LEDs into this piece And this one so this one is a fun piece This piece is a card dashboard that we're using to demonstrate a couple different pieces of our technology So with this dashboard you'll see that there's actually a board here that we can interact with Capacitive touch and the capacitive touch all of the sensors are actually underneath on this piece So from here what we're doing is we're bordering our board in we have each one of our sensors Integrated in we also have our LEDs in and this is all done as a single step process There's no soldering and there's no other setup required other than putting the board into the hole And so we actually have a functional one of those over here if you'd like to see and that would be what kind of market So this we're looking at different automotive or different interaction technologies market Although it could be applied to a whole bunch of different markets inside nice well That's a it's interesting to touch That's a lot of something is different. Absolutely. Absolutely. So What's next do you think there's gonna be a huge future for smart pixels are you gonna be a big part of that? So I think from from my background in textile engineering I think that from embroidery standpoint I can create complexity of designs and be able to change my machines very very quickly to run One type of sample one hour a totally different type of second hour And I think that allows for the highest amount of flexibility with design Which is what we're looking for free textiles. How does it work this? What is this software system here? So this is all developed in companies So we do all our own software firmware development and machine development But what we can do is we can take a DXF or some other type of vector-based file And the vector-based file we can use as a path to be able to create stitches on top of it So does the NSK have been doing this kind of machines for a long time? so we've been doing traditional embroidery machines with CSK for Quite a while now it's probably in the last ten years that we're starting to really reach out to different markets specifically e-textiles But otherwise it's been like a decades and decades of being a marketer. It's a very very mature technology. Yes So our bird here we have a very different type of embroidery so this is called K-style embroidery So a K head embroidery uses a chenille stitch or essentially loops of material to be able to create something It feels like the top of a terry cloth or a towel and with that we're able to create high surface area To be able to do things like create electrodes or electron stimulation So with that kind of technology because it has such a high surface area We're able to get a really good reading off of EMG or electroencephalograms We're also able to do the reverse of that to be able to stimulate a region with Just wearing a t-shirt is enough to get a heart rate. We can get a heart rate off of that. Very good heart rate That's it. No need to have it very tight or anything No, well you want it to be at least tight enough so you don't have false signals But other than that the technology allows you to reduce your need for like saline gels or traditional gel based materials that go on electrodes So are you the market leader for this kind of tech? I would think so There's some competitors, right? There are a few competitors But I don't think they're as advanced or mature in some of the e-textiles and Composites work that we're doing so I think that leads us out to a very unique position to be in right now Here at the tech show, I think I've seen some companies that have all the different kinds of propositions in terms of Threads, maybe right are you reaching out to new and new threads that can do different things? Absolutely So we're always looking for new materials to work with new base materials new threads new ideas to try So if there any of those ever come up feel free to reach out We'll see if it's a possible fit. Have you had some good discussions here? Absolutely, absolutely some people New ideas more things that we want to test out a little bit more see if it's a good fit So I'll run those samples in my lab back in Seattle when I get back there