Fred Hoefler decided to build an automated loom to assist the hand weavers who are too old to go on about the repetitive job and thus, are forced to give up their prized art.
Essentially, Hoefler wanted to design a machine that would not be too expensive. The assistive looms available in the market come with a price tag of around ten thousand dollars. He wanted to use Raspberry Pi to develop this machine that costs $35.
Hoefler decided that none of the components of the machine will cost more than the price of the Raspberry Pi board. Thus, the overall project cost just over $150.
To automate the hand-powered loom, he ordered 12V geared motors from Amazon and used self-designed motor driving circuits to drive these motors. The Python-running Raspberry Pi module delivers commands to the motor. The loom can be controlled using the keyboard or by typing commands directly into the Shell.
The automated loom also comes with a few manual switches on the body. You can watch the formerly hand-powered loom being controlled by Raspberry Pi in this video:
