@Karen Hambly: No worries, there is much hope! You can find stretch & bend sensors here. The idea is that they change resistance (an electrical property) proportionally to length change. The typical way to detect this is with something called a voltage divider. You would connect the stretch sensor (a variable resistor) to a fixed resistor (example) and feed this voltage divider a specific/fixed electrical DC voltage (Vin). As the sensor changes resistance (stretches), the output value/voltage of the voltage divider (Vout) will change. This value is then read by a microcontroller and used to determine (indirectly) how much the sensor stretched by. All in all, if you wire it properly to a simple microcontroller board (such as an Arduino-compatible board) and run the basic “Analog to serial” example and connect it to pin A0, you should be able to see the value of the sensor as you use it in real-time. Of course, this may require some fiddling and experimenting, but it is certainly doable by something starting out. You can certainly buy the parts linked above and try it out! If you encounter any issues, feel free to create a new topic on our forum and the RobotShop community will help you out.