Abstract

Community mural projects provide youth with the opportunity to learn new skills, have a voice, and deepen their connection to their communities. This pictorial reflects on a participatory community-based STEAM project in which a group of teenagers collaborated with a muralist (Author 2) and two interaction design researchers (Authors 1 and 5) to create an Interactive Mural—a traditional mural with embedded electronics. We analyzed students’ experience of agency, expression, and connection to community throughout the project. We discuss how large-scale community-centered projects that provide opportunities for student agency and expression are rich learning environments that can promote technological fluency.

This paper presents clay-dough, a 3D printable ceramic material that is made from a mixture of stoneware clay and a biomaterial dough. While all clays shrink when they are fired at high temperatures, clay-dough enables more dramatic shrinkage due to the dough burning away. We developed three clay-dough recipes made from different ratios of clay-to-dough and characterized the properties of each recipe; ultimately correlating shrinkage, density, strength, and porosity to the amount of dough in the recipe. We then leveraged clay-dough’s shrinkage in our material-oriented approach to create ceramic forms, where form is dictated by the pattern we load the clay-dough materials in for 3D printing. To exemplify this approach, we built a design space around basic cylindrical forms that change shape during the firing process into more complex forms and explored a range of non-cylindrical applications. Lastly, we reflect on the limitations and opportunities for clay-dough and material-centered research.

This paper introduces CeraMetal, a low-cost and robust approach to desktop metal 3D printing based on a custom "metal clay". We present three recipes for 3D printable bronze clay along with a workflow that includes print parameters and a sintering schedule. We introduce custom slicing software that generates continuous extrusion toolpaths for metal clay printing. We analyze the shrinkage, density, tensile strength and flexibility of prints produced with Cerametal and find the material’s performance comparable to parts produced via other bronze 3D printing methods. Finally, we provide several examples of 3D printed metal objects and a discussion of limitations and future research opportunities.

This paper introduces interactive murals—artworks that combine longstanding traditions in community mural painting with ubiquitous computing—as new sites for collaborative STEAM learning. Using research-through-design and participatory design methods, we conducted an intensive spring and summer workshop in which high school students were introduced to electronics and programming through the process of creating an interactive mural. We describe the workshop activities, the mural design process, and the data collection and analysis methods. Through documenting student learning in programming and electronics and the collaboration that occurred, we build an argument for the novel learning affordances of interactive murals, emphasizing the unique opportunities that they provide for collaborative STEAM learning.

Clay 3D printing is a relatively new technology and only a narrow range of geometries is 3D printable if one is employing commercially available slicing software. We experienced these limitations in an artist residency program where artists discovered that many desired geometries failed to print successfully. This motivated us to develop WeaveSlicer, a slicer optimized for 3D printing in clay that maintains constant wall thickness throughout the form. We achieve constant wall thickness by generating an oscillating path where the amplitude of the oscillation is determined by the form’s overhang angle. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by comparing a range of successful prints, sliced by WeaveSlicer, to failed prints of the same forms sliced by Cura, a widely used slicing software. We then showcase a collection of complex artifacts designed by artists in residence that were constructed with WeaveSlicer.

In this studio, we will explore sustainable tangible interfaces by making a range of biomaterials that are bio-based and readily biodegradable. Building off of previous TEI studios that were centered around one specific biomaterial (i.e., bioplastics at TEI’22 and microbial cellulose at TEI’23), this studio will provide participants the ability to experience a wide variety of biomaterials from algae-based bioplastics, to food-waste-based bioclays, to gelatin-based biofoams. We will teach participants how to identify types of biomaterials that are applicable to their own research and how to make them. Through hands-on activities, we will demonstrate how to implement biomaterials in the design of sustainable tangible interfaces and discuss topics sensitized by biological media such as more-than-human temporalities, bioethics, care, and unmaking. Ultimately, our goal is to facilitate a space in which HCI researchers and designers can collaborate, create, and discuss the opportunities and challenges of working with sustainable biomaterials.

In this paper we present Travel Reduction Algorithm (TRAvel) Slicer, which minimizes travel movements in 3D printing. Conventional slicing software generates toolpaths with many travel movements–movements without material extrusion. Some 3D printers are incapable of starting and stopping extrusion and it is difficult to impossible to control the extrusion of many materials. This makes toolpaths with travel movements unsuitable for a wide range of printers and materials.

We designed the LilyTiny sewable microcontroller over ten years ago in an effort to make electronic textiles more accessible to students, educators, and novices; it was meant to be affordable, easy to get started with, and well-supported by curriculum. We also designed the LilyTiny with hopes of helping to bridge the gap between e-textile activities using only lights and batteries – and those requiring knowledge of Arduino programming. Following its pilot, the LilyTiny was released as a commercial product through SparkFun Electronics, costing about $5 (USD) and shipping pre-programmed to control various LED behaviors. Free curriculum was released alongside it, detailing six low-cost activities that could be taught without any prior electronics experience.

Play-dough is a brightly-colored, easy-to-make, and familiar material. We have developed and tested custom play-dough materials that can be employed in 3D printers designed for clay. This paper introduces a set of recipes for 3D printable play-dough along with an exploration of these materials’ print characteristics. We explore the design potential of play-dough as a sustainable fabrication material, highlighting its recyclability, compostability, and repairability. We demonstrate how custom-color prints can be designed and constructed and describe how play-dough can be used as a support material for clay 3D prints. We also present a set of example artifacts made from play-dough and discuss opportunities for future research.

Slab-based ceramics are constructed by rolling out flat sheets of clay, cutting out a pattern, and then folding the cut clay to build a three-dimensional design. Slabforge is an open-source web-based software application that supports slab-based ceramics. It enables users to design a range of simple 3D forms and then generate flat patterns and matching 3D-printable slump molds that support the construction of those forms. This paper discusses the development of the software in the context of our own ceramics practice and then describes the results of a study in which students in an introductory ceramics course used Slabforge to create tea sets. We use both of these experiences to motivate a critical reflection on the relationships between materials, craft, digital fabrication, and software, introducing three themes of friction that we encountered during the course of this project.

This paper introduces , an open-source Turtle Geometry library for 3D printing, which generates G-CODE based on the path traveled by a LOGO-inspired Turtle. We describe the functionality of our library and demonstrate how it provides an intuitive and accessible way to create objects with a range of interesting properties, using Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D printers. We also present a collection of examples–including replications of previous research as well as original investigations–to demonstrate the power and flexibility of our library and this general approach. Our examples include 3D printed textiles, textured surfaces, and delicate string-art sculptures, along with traditional Turtle Geometry forms.

We share a study on the public adoption the Chibitronics circuit sticker toolkit, an open source, commercially available hardware toolkit for learning and creating electronics on paper. We examine sales data over a two-and-a-half-year period from November 2013, when the kit was launched commercially, to June 2016. We also look at publicly available project documentation from users during this period. We find that the Chibitronics user community confounds norms for traditional technology-making communities, especially in gender demographics. We explore the artifacts and types of documentation produced by users to learn about the various backgrounds, values, and goals of subcommunities, which includes educators, Makers, and crafters. In particular, we focus on artifacts from the craft community as a surprising and distinctive subset of technology creators. The diversity in public engagement shows how paper electronics tools like Chibitronics can be an effective approach for engaging new and broader audiences to participate in technology creation.

This paper explores personal fabrication as a means of engaging new audiences in the creation of electronic devices, which play an ever-increasing role in our lives but which most people have little involvement in creating. We describe a six-session workshop in which eight participants made wifi-connected devices through the design and fabrication of custom printed circuit boards. We explore the implications of using components and processes analogous to those in commercial products, as opposed to the limited set of higher-level building blocks found in toolkits for hobbyist electronics. We highlight unique advantages and challenges of a personal fabrication approach. We explore the role of attitudes in identifying a suitable audience for these activities. We discuss insights into commercial electronic products offered by personal fabrication and explore its role in a world of mass-produced electronic devices. Finally, we suggest opportunities for future tools and technologies.

This paper describes our do-it-yourself cellphone and our use of it to investigate the possibilities and limits of high-tech DIY practice. We describe our autobiographical approach -- making the phone and using it in our daily lives -- and our work disseminating the cellphone in workshops and online. This informs a discussion of the implications of technology for DIY practice. We suggest an understanding of DIY as an individual's ability to combine existing technologies into a desired product, enabled and limited by ecosystems of industrial actors and individuals. We distinguish different pathways into high-tech DIY practice, consider the relationship between prototyping and production, and discuss the effect of technology on DIY's relevance and tools, and on notions of transparency. We conclude by reflecting on the relationship between DIY and empowerment: the extent to which making devices gives people control over the technology in their lives.

The field of new methods and techniques for building electronics is quickly growing - from research in new materials for circuit building, to modular toolkits, and more recently to untoolkits, which aim to incorporate more off-the-shelf parts. However, the standard mediums for circuit design and construction remain the breadboard, protoboard, and printed circuit board (PCB). As an alternative, we introduce a method in which circuits are hand-made on ordinary paper substrates, connected with conductive foil tape and off-the-shelf circuit components with the aim of supporting the durability, scalability, and accessibility needs of novice and expert circuit builders alike. We also used electrified notebooks to investigate how the circuit design and build process would be affected by the constraints and affordances of the bound book. Our ideas and techniques were evaluated through a series of workshops, through which we found our methods supported a wide variety of approaches and results - both technical and expressive - to electronics design and construction.

This thesis explores the intersection of craft and electronics by way of paper and conductive ink, a domain that I'm terming papercraft electronics-a synthesis of electronics, drawing, and painting. I investigate the nature of making a physical electronic artifact, and the ways in which that making informs our relationship with both the artifact, specifically, as well as technology writ large. I examine craft-the manual process-as a means for embedding new kinds of personally-significant meaning in electronics, re-positioning electronics fabrication as the creation of personal, unique, hand-crafted artifacts. I do so through a series of case studies oriented around the papercraft electronics domain. Through a sequence of projects, workshops, and evaluations, I examine the personal connection and pride that comes with making, as well as the handmade artifact's place in technology. In particular, I initiate projects around the making of paper sensors, speakers, synthesizers, and audio-augmented artworks.

The field of computational textiles has shown promise as a domain for diversifying computer science culture by drawing a population with broad and non-traditional interests and backgrounds into creating technology. In this paper, we present a curriculum that teaches computer science and computer programming through a series of activities that involve building and programming computational textiles. We also describe two new technological tools, Modkit and the LilyPad ProtoSnap board, that support implementation of the curriculum. In 2011-12, we conducted three workshops to evaluate the impact of our curriculum and tools on students' technological self-efficacy. We conclude that our curriculum both draws a diverse population, and increases students' comfort with, enjoyment of, and interest in working with electronics and programming.

The combination of computational design and digital fabrication offers many exciting possibilities for art, design, and creative expression. We seek to make computational design accessible by developing tools that allow novices to use programming and digital fabrication to produce personal and functional objects. In this paper, we describe our development of Codeable Objects, a preliminary computational-design programing tool developed to work in conjunction with digital-fabrication machines. We also present our evaluation of the tool based on a set of user studies in which people built computationally generated crafts, clothing, and accessories. These studies illuminated the viability (and challenges) of engaging novice programmers through design and digital fabrication, and provide a platform for future work in developing programming tools to support personal expression.

Embedded programming is typically made accessible through modular electronics toolkits. In this paper, we explore an alternative approach, combining microcontrollers with craft materials and processes as a means of bringing new groups of people and skills to technology production. We have developed simple and robust techniques for drawing circuits with conductive ink on paper, enabling off-the-shelf electronic components to be embedded directly into interactive artifacts. We have also developed an set of hardware and software tools -- an instance of what we call an "untoolkit" -- to provide an accessible toolchain for the programming of microcontrollers. We evaluated our techniques in a number of workshops, one of which is detailed in the paper. Four broader themes emerge: accessibility and appeal, the integration of craft and technology, microcontrollers vs. electronic toolkits, and the relationship between programming and physical artifacts. We also expand more generally on the idea of an untoolkit, offering a definition and some design principles, as well as suggest potential areas of future research.

This paper investigates the use of digital fabrication for the individual production and customization of electronic devices. We present two products -- a pair of speakers with laser-cut parts and a computer mouse with a 3D-printed enclosure -- and describe their making and modification by workshop participants. The speakers target a general audience, engaging a diversity of skills and backgrounds. The mouse aims at designers, exploring the application of 3D modeling skills to the production of electronic devices. We use the case studies to discuss general implications of digital fabrication for technology production and education: enabling collaboration and iteration through open-source hardware, enhancing the products of educational technologies and experiences, and increasing the diversity of and personal connections to electronic products. The case studies also suggest opportunities for further research into tools, materials, and people.

Our aim is to make shape memory alloys (SMAs) accessible and visible as creative crafting materials by combining them with paper. In this paper, we begin by presenting mechanisms for actuating paper with SMAs along with a set of design guidelines for achieving dramatic movement. We then describe how we tested the usability and educational potential of one of these mechanisms in a workshop where participants, age 9 to 15, made actuated electronic origami cranes. We found that participants were able to successfully build constructions integrating SMAs and paper, that they enjoyed doing so, and were able to learn skills like circuitry design and soldering over the course of the workshop.

This paper looks at collaboration in open-source hardware: physical goods whose digital design files are shared for others to make or modify. Through research into nine variations on the Arduino Duemilanove (an electronic circuit board) and interviews with their developers, we explore the process and outcome of open-source hardware development. We find a structure that differs substantially from that of most open-source software projects, involving many small-scale collaborations rather than a centralized process. We discuss three possible reasons for this structure: differing component selections, the investment required for prototyping, and the lack of software collaboration tools.

Introducing continuous sonic interaction in augmented pop-up books enhances the expressive and performative qualities of movables, making the whole narrative experience more engaging and personal. The SaMPL Spring School on Sounding Popables explored the specific topic of paper-driven sonic narratives. Working groups produced several sketches of sonic interactions with movables. The most significant sketches of sounding popables are presented and analyzed.

This article examines the practice of electronics building in the context of other crafts. We compare the experience of making electronics with the experiences of carving, sewing, and painting. Our investigation is grounded in a survey of 40 practicing craftspeople who are working in each of these disciplines. We then use this survey as a foundation for a discussion of hybrid craft—integrations of electronics with carving, sewing, and painting. We present examples of hybrid craft and discuss the ways in which blended practices can enrich and diversify technology.

We present I/O Stickers, adhesive sensors and actuators that children can use to handcraft personalized remote communication interfaces. By attaching I/O Stickers to special wirelessly connected greeting cards, children can invent ways to communicate with long-distance loved ones. Children decorate these cards with their choice of craft materials, creatively expressing themselves while making a functioning interface. The low-bandwidth connections -- simple actuators that change as the sensor stickers are manipulated -- leave room not only to design the look and function of the card, but also to decide how to interpret the information transmitted. We aim to empower children to implement ideas that would otherwise require advanced electronics knowledge. In addition, we hope to support creative learning about communication and to make keeping in touch playful and meaningful. In this paper, we describe the design of the I/O Stickers, analyze a variety of artifacts children have created, and explore future directions for the toolkit.

LilyPond is a new online community that enables people to document, share and browse e-textile projects---projects that blend electronics, computation and textiles. It was designed to be a project repository and a community gathering place for students, educators, and hobbyists who are creating e-textiles. In this paper, we describe the developing website and its user community. We examine the demographics of this community, its patterns of site usage and its emerging tastes and preferences.

In this paper we discuss the role of open-source hardware in supporting creativity. We use the case study of an open-source FM radio and explore the modes of creation that emerged from a workshop in which participants modified and produced the design: making, personalizing, designing, engineering, and experimenting. We contrast open-source hardware with other approaches to supporting creativity and explore some of its unique challenges and opportunities.

This paper explores the ways in which digital fabrication allows for the small-scale manufacture and individual customization of consumer electronic products. We present Fab FM, an open-source FM radio that integrates an electronic circuit board, laser-cut wood, and fabric. We describe a workshop in which participants designed and built their own Fab FM variants, modifying the form, materials, and behavior of the radio. Drawing from this experience, we discuss three themes: the issues involved in working across design domains, the ways in which design can serve as source code, and the difference between open- source and hackable. We present potential business models for Fab FM, and discuss the possibilities that digital fabrication offers for a more diverse landscape of high-tech products.

This paper explores the idea of handcrafted electronics. We introduce a kit-of-no-parts approach to building electronics from a diverse palette of craft materials, which we argue is more personal, understandable and accessible than the construction of technology from a kit of pre-determined components. We illustrate our approach by describing the design, construction, and dissemination of a collection of textile sensors, and detailing a website and a series of workshops through which we share our approach.

As technologies, finely bound books are compact, durable forms that get passed from one generation to the next. As handcrafted objects, they exemplify manual control and dexterity, patience and care, and continuity with the past. Paper-based electronic books, by contrast, are relatively new objects that enable novel interactions with material. Here we explore connections between centuries-old and contemporary building techniques by adding electronics to traditional binding. What kinds of details would be interesting to learn about the past? How could we use conductive fibers to talk to the future? What could gilded edges tell us about our interactions with books? In this studio, participants will build basic bookbinding and e-textiles skills to enable new material explorations.

This paper examines the distribution, adoption, and evolution of an open-source toolkit we developed called the LilyPad Arduino. We track the two-year history of the kit and its user community from the time the kit was commercially introduced, in October of 2007, to November of 2009. Using sales data, publicly available project documentation and surveys, we explore the relationship between the LilyPad and its adopters. We investigate the community of developers who has adopted the kit---paying special attention to gender---explore what people are building with it, describe how user feedback impacted the development of the kit and examine how and why people are contributing their own LilyPad-inspired tools back to the community. What emerges is a portrait of a new technology and a new engineering/design community in co-evolution.

This workshop will explore the use of low-cost materials and tools to build textile-based interfaces that replace the current hard-shell computer mice or laptop touchpads that you use to navigate your screen. We will introduce a range of methods for handcrafting textile input devices. Participants will learn techniques developed by the workshop leaders and will also be encouraged to use our materials library to design their own custom mice. The goal of the workshop is to familiarize participants with available electronic textile materials, to introduce them to a variety of sensor and circuitry construction techniques and get people thinking about different interfaces that allow you interact differently with everyday technology.

This paper presents an e-sewing tutorial that details how to sew circuits into fabric. The tutorials are intended for an audience of young adults without access to workshops or classroom activities on this topic. Development of the tutorials was motivated by the emergence of online learning as a useful educational pathway for students. We reflect upon our introductory explorations with self-motivated learners and how these explorations may inform future development of online support materials.

Ubicomp applications increasingly involve smart phones that control or communicate with embedded systems. Compelling examples in this space include tangible interfaces, environmental sensor networks, game controllers and automated homes. Across research, design, and hobbyist communities there is clearly a desire to build applications that involve combinations of mobile and non-mobile technologies. However, constructing these applications is a laborious process that requires considerable breadth and depth of expertise in programming, electronics, industrial and interaction design.

The Living Wall project explores the construction and application of interactive wallpaper. Using conductive, resistive, and magnetic paints we produced wallpaper that enables us to create dynamic, reconfigurable, programmable spaces. The wallpaper consists of circuitry that is painted onto a sheet of paper and a set of electronic modules that are attached to it with magnets. The wallpaper can be used for a multitude of functional and fanciful applications involving lighting, environmental sensing, appliance control, and ambient information display.

This workshop will explore the use of low-cost materials and tools to build textile-based interfaces. We will introduce a range of methods for handcrafting textile sensors and circuitry. Participants will learn techniques developed by the workshop leaders and will also be encouraged to use our material library to design their own custom sensors. The goal of the workshop is to familiarize participants with available electronic textile materials and introduce them to a variety of sensor and circuitry construction techniques.

We have developed an interactive pop-up book called Electronic Popables to explore paper-based computing. Our book integrates traditional pop-up mechanisms with thin, flexible, paper-based electronics and the result is an artifact that looks and functions much like an ordinary pop-up, but has added elements of dynamic interactivity. This paper introduces the book and, through it, a library of paper-based sensors and a suite of paper-electronics construction techniques. We also reflect on the unique and under-explored opportunities that arise from combining material experimentation, artistic design, and engineering.

The subject of children's programming has long been a vexed and controversial one in the field of educational technology. Debates in this area have typically focused on issues such as how to create a child-friendly programming language; or whether children can learn particular topics (e.g., recursion) in programming; or indeed, whether it is worthwhile for children to encounter programming at all. For the most part, these debates have taken place against an implicit background of assumptions about what children's programming looks like--namely, an activity focused on creating effects on a desktop screen or, occasionally, robotic toy. This paper argues that the cultural and anthropological contexts of children's programming are now poised to change: that new programming materials, physical settings, and unorthodox display surfaces are likely to shift the nature of the children's-programming debate in profound ways, and to make programming a far more informal, approachable, and natural activity than heretofore. We illustrate this argument with projects underway in our own research.

This paper describes what we believe to be important initial steps toward realizing a novel computational medium that combines elements of programming, painting, and papercrafts. Briefly, this genre of paper computing allows a user to create functional computational artifacts on painted paper substrates. We introduce a construction kit for paper computing that consists of computational elements---microcontrollers, sensors, actuators, and power sources---that are held on paper surfaces by magnetic paint and magnets. Conductive paint applied to these surfaces takes on the role of "wires", connecting the computational elements to one another. These elements can be moved around and from surface to surface, much like magnets on a refrigerator, and the overall result is a tangible medium in which painting, programming, and the affordances of paper blend together. In addition to introducing the kit, we describe example constructions and discuss a variety of potential applications, design projects, and issues for continued research.

The advent of novel materials (such as conductive fibers) combined with accessible embedded computing platforms have made it possible to re-imagine the landscapes of fabric and electronic crafts--extending these landscapes with the creative range of electronic/computational textiles or e-textiles. This paper describes the LilyPad Arduino, a fabric-based construction kit that enables novices to design and build their own soft wearables and other textile artifacts. The kit consists of a microcontroller and an assortment of sensors and actuators in stitch-able packages; these elements can be sewn to cloth substrates and each other with conductive thread to build e-textiles. This paper will introduce the latest version of the kit; reflect on its affordances; present the results of our most recent user studies; and discuss possible directions for future work in the area of personalized e-textile design and its relation to technology education.

This paper proposes a curriculum for a high school e-textile course-a curriculum rooted in our experiences in developing an e-textile construction kit and in holding several courses and workshops with these materials. The paper briefly describes the e-textile kit and reports on our teaching experiences, reflecting on the relationship between the evolving tools and curriculum and our user experiences.

An astonishing array of new technologies is currently effecting a revolution in the professional design of textile artifacts. This integration of electronics and computation into textiles likewise suggests new directions in the practice of children's crafts. In this paper, we present a classification scheme that we believe will prove useful in structuring exploration and discussion of new directions in children's textile-based crafts. Within the context of this classification scheme, we describe several projects in our lab (along with early pilot-testing efforts) that offer examples of how children can work with computationally enriched textiles. We conclude by describing several extremely exciting-but nonetheless plausible-scenarios for continued work in this area.

The traditional view of the "home computer" is as a self-contained appliance: computation, on this view, is something that takes place within a desktop box, and that produces interesting visual effects only on a screen. In this paper, we argue that one can alternatively view "the computer" through its tangible effects on larger settings: that is, the computer can be imagined as the heart of a creative workshop centered within the home or classroom. The advent of accessible fabrication devices, as well as small computers that can be embedded in craft items, permits users to think of the room at large as a place in which computationally-enriched or computationally-designed "exhibits" of various types may be displayed. We illustrate this idea with a variety of projects undertaken within our laboratory.