TEI ’25, March 04–07, 2025, Bordeaux / Talence, France

XR headset users often lose environmental awareness, resulting in unintentional collisions and social boundary violations. We present XR Marionette, a wearable system that applies progressive constraints on arm movement (none → elbow-to-waist → elbow-to-waist + wrist-to-shoulder), while switching XR interaction methods (grab, ray-casting, and microgestures) based on proximity to surrounding obstacles and people. The system adapts to both solo and social contexts with context-dependent distance thresholds, promoting safety, social harmony, and sustained XR engagement through proactive constraints rather than reactive warnings.

We introduce a DIY method of creating inflatables and prototyping interactive materials from wasted thermoplastic bags that easily found at home. We used a inexpensive FFF 3D printer, without any customization of the printer, to heat-seal and patterning different types of mono and multilayered thermoplastic bags. We characterized 8 different types of commonly-used product package’s plastic film which are mostly made of polypropylene and polyethylene, and provided 3D printer settings for re-purposing each material. In addition to heat-sealing, we explored a new design space of using a 3D printer to create embossing, origami creases, and textures on thermoplastic bags, and demonstrate examples of applying this technique to create various materials for rapid design and prototyping. To validate the durability of the inflatables, we evaluated 9 different thermoplastic air pouches’ heat-sealed bonding strength. Lastly, we show use-case scenarios of prototyping products and interface, and creating playful experience at home.

We propose inDepth, a novel system that enables force-based interaction with objects beyond a physical barrier by using scalable force sensor modules. inDepth transforms a physical barrier (eg. glass showcase or 3D display) to a tangible input interface that enables users to interact with objects out of reach, by applying finger pressure on the barrier’s surface. To achieve this interaction, our system tracks the applied force as a directional vector by using three force sensors installed underneath the barrier. Meanwhile, our force-to-depth conversion algorithm translates force intensity into a spatial position along its direction beyond the barrier. Finally, the system executes various operations on objects in that position based on the type of application. In this paper, we introduce inDepth concept and its design space. We also demonstrate example applications, including selecting items in showcases and manipulating 3D rendered models.

We present a wrist-worn mobile heart rate regulator -- ambienBeat -- which provides closed-loop biofeedback via tactile stimulus based on users' heartbeat rate (HR). We applied the principle of physiological synchronization via touch to achieve our goal of effortless regulation of HR, which is tightly coupled with mental stress levels. ambienBeat provides various patterns of tactile stimuli, which mimics the feeling of a heartbeat pulse, to guide user's HR to resonate with its rhythmic, tactile patterns. The strength and rhythmic patterns of tactile stimulation are controlled to a level below the cognitive threshold of an individual's tactile sensitivity on their wrist so as to minimize task disturbance. Here we present an acoustically noise-less soft voice-coil actuator to render the ambient tactile stimulus and present the system and implementation process. We evaluated our system by comparing it to ambient auditory and visual guidance. Results from the user study shows that the tactile stimulation was effective in guiding user's HR to resonate with ambienBeat to either calm or boost the heart rate using minimal cognitive load.

reSpire lets people bring tangibility to their invisible physiological state through shape-changing fabric deformed by airflow. We explore a way to support mental wellness via improving a self-interaction and interpersonal connectedness. reSpire encourages not only people to focus on their connection to inner body but also to interact with others through playful tangible interactions in the same location and develop a empathy. We created a non-machine like interface responsive to users' respiration patterns and hand gestures using a fabric and its deformation by airflow control. We also introduce a computational model to simulate the deformation of fabric by the variance of airflow pres-sure and direction. Various interaction scenarios highlight its applications not only to health but also to interactive art installation.

In this art project, the ephemeral and intangible aspects of human's communication are represented by soap-bubble. The shapeless, intangible, and insubstantial speech - once the speech is shouted out through speaker's mouth it disappears unless someone hears it immediately, or even it is heard, the message will be forgotten as time goes - is transferred to a semi-tangible yet still fleeting bubble. The bubble machine that we created provides person-to-person and person-to-space interaction. The machine has a iris mechanism that varies its outlet size reacting to the participant's speech pattern as if it tries to talk something. Once the participant pauses, the machine blows out various sizes of bubble. The floating bubble represents the subtle state of a message from interpersonal communications that lies in the middle of real and digital world. Also, it creates a certain delay until it pops, which is a metaphor of our behavior that we often delay to send out text-messages through chatting apps. We believe that anyone can be an artist. By open-sourcing the details of fabrication process and materials, we want to encourage people to build the machine, interact with it at any locations, and use and modify it as a art tool for realizing their own ideas whether it is for art or not.

Repeated mechanical failure due to accidental impact is one of the main reasons why people with upper-limb amputations abandon commercially-available prosthetic hands. To address this problem, we present the design and evaluation of a compliant four-bar linkage mechanism that makes the fingers of a prosthetic hand more impact resistant. Our design replaces both the rigid input and coupler links with a monolithic compliant bone, and replaces the follower link with three layers of pre-stressed spring steel. This design behaves like a conventional four-bar linkage but adds lateral compliance and eliminates a pin joint, which is a main site of failure on impact. Results from free-end and fixed-end impact tests show that, compared to those made with a conventional four-bar linkage, fingers made with our design absorb up to 11% more energy on impact with no mechanical failure. We also show the integration of these fingers in a prosthetic hand that is low-cost, light-weight, and easy to assemble, and that has grasping performance comparable to commercially-available hands.