Material waste is an ongoing global challenge, with conventional recycling often proving neither economically viable nor environmentally sustainable. This pictorial explores an alternative approach by upcycling discarded plastic bags into reusable and functional materials for creative making practices. We present a set of fabrication techniques for working with fused plastic sheets and integrating them with DIY electronics, designed with disassembly in mind to support continued reuse and recyclability. Our contributions include: (1) Fabrication techniques for embedding removable electronics into upcycled plastic while preserving material integrity; (2) Design applications—three interactive prototypes that demonstrate the potential of upcycled plastic in sustainable smart design prototyping; and (3) Design insights—reflections on end-of-life considerations and the value of intentional, process-driven creation. This work contributes to the discourse on sustainable making and unmaking by positioning disassembly and reuse as central components in interaction design.

Amid escalating ecological challenges, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers have begun adopting More-than-Human design (MtHD) approaches as a means of reimagining and strengthening the bonds between the human and non-human world. Taking a MtHD approach, this work investigates how loofah, a plant-based, biodegradable material, can be used to foster ecological awareness in everyday life. We present a material exploration of loofah, including initial encounters with loofah as a uniquely structural material, a design space focused on how loofah can be combined with various indicators that respond to different environmental factors like temperature, UV radiation, pH of water and soil, the Iron and moisture in soil and utilizing loofah as a substrate for plant growth. Based on this design space, we create two wearables: a hat and a glove. These artifacts incorporate environmental sensing capabilities and host live microgreens, highlighting loofah‘s potential as both an interface and habitat. Through a 15-day autoethnographic journaling process by the first and second authors, we reflect on the embodied experiences of “wearing” environmental change and cultivating on-body ecological practices. This pictorial contributes to the HCI community by introducing a biomaterial-based embodied interaction to provoke reflections on the relationships between materials, non-human forms, and the environment, while integrating functional considerations into MtHD.

Food perception is a multisensory experience shaped by environmental cues such as ambient lighting. Previous studies have demonstrated that lighting can impact how satisfied we feel while dining. However, many of these studies were conducted in controlled laboratory settings with standardized meals, overlooking how lighting interacts with personal dietary choices and diverse dining contexts. This paper introduces LumiBite, a portable lighting system integrated into a lunchbox, designed for dining environments to enable personalized lighting adjustments during meals. Through a seven-day in-the-wild study with six participants, where they freely chose when, what, and where to eat, we explored the feasibility of deploying LumiBite and investigated how user agency in customizing lighting settings impacts dining satisfaction, sensory perception and dietary behaviors. Our findings demonstrate that LumiBite not only enhances food aesthetics but also shifts users from passive consumers to active meal curators. The study highlights key challenges, including cultural dining practices and ambient light interference, and offers actionable design principles for creating context-aware, culturally sensitive dining technologies.

ABSTRACT

Today’s electronics are manufactured to provide stable functionality and fixed physical forms optimized for reliable operation over long periods and repeated use. However, even when applications don’t call for such robustness, the permanency of these electronics comes with environmental consequences. In this paper, we describe an alternative approach that utilizes sustainable transient electronics whose method of destruction is also key to their functionality. We create these electronics through three different methods: 1) by inkjet printing conductive silver traces on poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) substrates to create water-soluble sensors; 2) by mixing a conductive beeswax material configured as a meltable sensor; and 3) by fabricating edible electronics with 3D printed chocolate and culinary gold leaf. To enable practical applications of these devices, we implement a fully transient and sustainable chipless RF detection system.

In this paper, we propose SwellSense, a fabrication technique to screen print stretchable circuits onto a special micro-capsule paper, creating localized swelling patterns with sensing capabilities. This simple technique will allow users to create a wide range of paper-based tactile interactive devices, which are mostly maintaining 2D planar form factor but can also be curved or folded into 3D interactive artifacts. We frst present the design guidelines to support various tactile interaction design including basic tactile graphic geometries, patterns with directional density, or fner interactive textures with embedded sensing such as touch sensor, pressure sensor, and mechanical switch. We then provide a design editor to enable users to design more creatively using the SwellSense technique. We provide a technical evaluation and user evaluation to validate the basic performance of SwellSense. Lastly, we demonstrate several application examples and conclude with a discussion on current limitations and future work.

My:Talkies is a tangible learning kit for teaching basic concepts of communication devices through expressive making with children (ages 11-14). The My:Talkies prototype comprises of a pair of two paper templates for embodying the communication entities, micro:bit boards, and paper potentiometers for analog to digital encoding. Through pilot studies with eight children and expert review sessions with ten out-of-school educators, we report the design affordances of our prototype and implications of design for future revisions. We found that the kit supported youth in learning through making with personal narratives to grasp abstract concepts such as transmitter/receiver and encoding/decoding. In the expert review, out-of-school educators positively evaluated that the kit is easy to use, good for teaching communication devices, and recommendable to others. The paper concludes with a discussion on the future work informed by observation from the pilot study and design suggestions from the educators.

This work presents PITAS, a thin-sheet robotic material composed of a reversible phase transition actuating layer and a heating/sensing layer. The synthetic sheet material enables non-expert makers to create shape-changing devices that can locally or remotely convey physical information such as shape, color, texture and temperature changes. PITAS sheets can be manipulated into various 2D shapes or 3D geometries using subtractive fabrication methods such as laser, vinyl, or manual cutting or an optional additive 3D printing method for creating 3D objects. After describing the design of PITAS, this paper also describes a study conducted with thirteen makers to gauge the accessibility, design space, and limitations encountered when PITAS is used as a soft robotic material while designing physical information communication devices. Lastly, this work reports on the results of a mechanical and electrical evaluation of PITAS and presents application examples to demonstrate its utility.

This paper presents FlexHaptics, a design method for creating custom haptic input interfaces. Our approach leverages planar compliant structures whose force-deformation relationship can be altered by adjusting the geometries. Embedded with such structures, a FlexHaptics module exerts a fine-tunable haptic effect (i.e., resistance, detent, or bounce) along a movement path (i.e., linear, rotary, or ortho-planar). These modules can work separately or combine into an interface with complex movement paths and haptic effects. To enable the parametric design of FlexHaptic modules, we provide a design editor that converts user-specified haptic properties into underlying mechanical structures of haptic modules. We validate our approach and demonstrate the potential of FlexHaptic modules through six application examples, including a slider control for a painting application and a piano keyboard interface on touchscreens, a tactile low vision timer, VR game controllers, and a compound input device of a joystick and a two-step button.

We present Shape-Haptics, an approach for designers to rapidly design and fabricate passive force feedback mechanisms for physical interfaces. Such mechanisms are used in everyday interfaces and tools, and they are challenging to design. Shape-Haptics abstracts and broadens the haptic expression of this class of force feedback systems through 2D laser cut configurations that are simple to fabricate. They leverage the properties of polyoxymethylene plastic and comprise a compliant spring structure that engages with a sliding profile during tangible interaction. By shaping the sliding profile, designers can easily customize the haptic force feedback delivered by the mechanism. We provide a computational design sandbox to facilitate designers to explore and fabricate Shape-Haptics mechanisms. We also propose a series of applications that demonstrate the utility of Shape-Haptics in creating and customizing haptics for different physical interfaces.

We have witnessed explosive growth in computing devices at all scales, in particular with small wireless devices that can permeate most of our physical world. The IoT industry is helping to fuel this insatiable desire for more and more data. We have to balance this growth with an understanding of its environmental impact. Indeed, the ENSsys community must take leadership in putting sustainability up front as a primary design principle for the future of IoT and related areas, expanding the research mandate beyond the intricacies of the computing systems in isolation to encompass and integrate the materials, new applications, and circular lifecycle of electronics in the IoT. Our call to action is seeded with a circularity-focused computing agenda that demands a cross-stack research program for energy-harvesting computational things.

This paper explores a novel tool and materials for brush-like expression in 3D forms. We envision a 2.5D painting device that aims at closing the gap between painterly expression, digital fabrication, and the incorporation of expressive elements present in traditional painting with structural capability. The paper describes the development of the new pigment material, a custom handheld extrusion device, and discusses a user study investigating emerging relationships with the developed medium. We find the reactivity and variability of the medium enabling strong expressive agency and new interaction opportunities. With these, we discuss what are aspects in making that could be embraced to enhance users’ creative agency and ownership in making, postulating a space between artistic expression and utilitarian making–e.g. digital fabrication.

Tools shape the way we think and make. This paper presents Strawctures, a toolkit for prototyping human-scale interactive artifacts. Strawctures consists of eight different functional modules including electronic components (touch and light for input, vibration, buzzer, and LEDs for output, two logic modules, and one extension) and connectors to explore form and function simultaneously. By simplifying prototyping processes of interactive artifacts in a real size, Strawctures provide a means to bring electronics to early stages in designers’ exploration, especially for those who are not trained nor confident in electronics. We demonstrate three application examples including a scarecrow (garden decoration), a pendant lighting (furniture), and a house (large-scale construction toy) to share the unique creative affordances of the kit as a tool for designers (Figure 1).

We present Self-powered Paper INterfaces (SPIN) combining folding paper creases with triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG). Embedding TENG into paper creases, we developed a design editor and set of fabrication techniques to create paper-based interfaces that power sensors and actuators. Our SPIN design editor enables users to design their own crease pattern by changing parameters, embed power generating modules into the design, estimate total power generation, and export the files. Then following the fabrication instructions, users can cut and crease materials, and assemble them to build their own interfaces. We employ repetitive push-and-pull based embodied interactions with the mechanism of paper creases and demonstrate four application examples that show new expressive possibilities applying different scales of embodied interactions.

This pictorial presents our material-driven inquiry into carbon-coated paper and kirigami structures. We investigated two variations of this paper and their affordances for tangible interaction; particularly their electrical, haptic, and visual aspects when shaped into three-dimensional forms through cutting, folding, and bending. Through this exploration, we uncovered distinct affordances between the two paper types for sensing folds and bends, due to differences in their material compositions. From these insights, we propose three applications that showcase the possibilities of this material for tangible interaction design. In addition, we leverage the pictorial format to expose working design schematics for others to take up their own explorations.

Creative iterative development over the past several years has generated an extensive set of computational tools, learning resources, and materials in the realm of paper mechatronics - an educational craft and design approach that weaves computational and mechanical elements into established traditions of children's construction with paper. Here, we both reflect upon our past and recent work of paper mechatronics, then look to the near- to medium-term future to speculate upon both the emerging trends in technology design and expanding learning potential of this medium for children along material, spatial, and temporal dimensions. We summarize lessons learned through various children's workshops with our materials; and we use these lessons as a foundation upon which to create a wide variety of novel tools and activities in educational papercrafting. We speculate upon the frontiers of this work based on current convergences and shifts in tangible creative computational media.

We present PEP (Printed Electronic Papercrafts), a set of design and fabrication techniques to integrate electronic based interactivities into printed papercrafts via 3D sculpting. We explore the design space of PEP, integrating four functions into 3D paper products: actuation, sensing, display, and communication, leveraging the expressive and technical opportunities enabled by paper-like functional layers with a stack of paper. We outline a seven-step workflow, introduce a design tool we developed as an add-on to an existing CAD environment, and demonstrate example applications that combine the electronic enabled functionality, the capability of 3D sculpting, and the unique creative affordances by the materiality of paper.

This studio invites participants to design and build machines with different kinds of paper and craft materials. We will introduce papercrafting using our design tool "FoldMecha", mechanical components, and prototyping methods for physical construction.

We present FoldMecha, a computer-aided design (CAD) system for exploratory construction of mechanical papercraft. FoldMecha enables students to (a) design their own movements with simple mechanisms by modifying parameters and (b) build physical prototypes. This paper describes the system, as well as associated prototyping methods that make the construction process easier and more adaptable to widely different creations. The paper also discusses a week-long workshop that we held with six teenagers using FoldMecha. The teens successfully designed and built their own mechanisms, and adapted them to a variety of creations. Throughout the workshop, they progressively achieved an advanced level of skill and understanding about mechanical movements.

We present a kit comprising cardboard mechanical components and a custom printed circuit board, designed to support novices in building computational percussive instruments with everyday materials. We set three design criteria: accessibility, adaptability, and expressivity. We conducted two workshops with experts and novices to assess the usability of our kit and observe the variety of constructions that users make. The kit enabled both experts and novices to build working instruments and to explore creative experimentation with different materials and objects.

Paper Mechatronics is a novel interdisciplinary design medium for children, enabled by recent advances in craft technologies: the term refers to a reappraisal of traditional educational papercrafts in combination with accessible mechanical, electronic, and computational elements. We present a design case study--building computationally-enhanced paper flowers--and discuss the iterative design process involved in the creation. We also describe a workshop we conducted with teenagers to evaluate paper mechatronics as a creative learning activity for children. We conclude with a discussion of future directions.

3D Printing has shown a great potential to print tactile picture books, in order to cultivate emergent literacy for children with visual impairments. However, currently available 3D design tools are hard to learn, resulting in children to be excluded from the participatory design of tactile pictures. Also, existing 3D design software lacks of functionality to incorporate mobility and rich textures, which is critical aspect of the effective tactile picture. In this paper, we review our formative studies, presenting a hands-on design process for children to empower their own creativities into 3D tactile pictures design, and to engage them to bring other materials to enhance touch experiences.

We present Cube-in, a kit designed to help beginners learn about fundamental concepts in physical computing. Through play and observation, Cube-in users can investigate digital and analog signals, inputs and outputs, and mapping between inputs and outputs before they work on electronics and construct circuits. By simplifying interaction methods, Cube-in provides an accessible entry point to key physical computing concepts.

Tangible interaction links digital data with physical forms to support embodied use. Puzzle pieces, which their inherent physical syntax of connectable elements, provide a powerful and expressive metaphor on which to construct such tangible systems. Prior work has explored this potential in the domain of edutainment systems for children aimed at tasks such as learning logic, programming or organizational skills. Although this work is promising, it has largely focused on relatively advanced concepts and children of ages 7-12 years. The work presented in this paper adopts the same perspective but focuses on young children (5 and under) and a simpler range of concepts relating to the clustering and manipulation of data. To achieve this it presents the design (including results from a series of six formative field studies) and implementation of the Digital Dream Lab tabletop puzzle block system. This system, intended for installation in a museum, engages young children (aged 4-5) to explore simple programmatic concepts and the link between the physical and virtual world. The paper closes with design recommendations of future work targeting this goal, setting and age group.

Engaging children born in the digital age with traditional culture practices is a pedagogical and a technological challenge. In this paper we describe Ilha Musical, an interactive panoramic experience designed to foster appreciation of traditional Madeiran cultural practices in children from the island and abroad. The design employs a rhythm game in which children engage in traditional folk music and song while being exposed to visuals of the landscape, architecture, dance and other cultural motifs. We conclude with an eye tracking and scene analysis showing the success of the game in using competition and cooperation as a means of engaging the children with each other as well as with the narrative, the physical display and interface elements.

Interactive art has emerged as a distinctive genre in media art that relies on digital contents to express the artist's message. Situated within this field, this work presents an approach to multimedia storytelling that allows audience members to control separate but overlapping parts of the story chapters. We believe that the system engages its audience with a high level of immersion due to its combination of digital computation and tangibility; the tangible system supports a stronger connection to the storytelling than traditional screen-based systems, helping to bridge the gap between the physical world and cyberspace within the field of multimedia storytelling 1]. Consequently, it offers significant potential to share storytelling among a group based its immersive environment and support for embodied interaction paradigms.