December 17, 2013
What does a NASA engineer do when he wants to try something new? Mark Rober left his job as a mechanical engineer working on projects like building the Mars Curiosity rover to use his engineering skills to design animated clothing that he calls "wearable technology."
![](/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/filemanager/files/crackling-fireplace-knit-ugly-christmas-sweater-digital-dudz-1.gif)
Here is an example. That is Mark Rober wearing a Christmas sweater that has an animated fireplace complete with a burning yule log. To make it work, the person wearing the sweater installs Rober’s app on his or her smartphone and stashes the phone in a velcro pocket hidden inside the sweater.
"Nothing is as cool as spaceships," he said. "But I will say, the thing I liked most about working for NASA was the creative aspect, and doing things no one has done before. [Now], that’s what I get to do with clothing."
Posted by: Seymour Simon
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