We present Speed-Modulated Ironing, a new fabrication method for programming visual and tactile properties in single-material 3D printing. We use one nozzle to 3D print and a second nozzle to reheat printed areas at varying speeds, controlling the material’s temperature-response. The rapid adjustments of speed allow for fine-grained reheating, enabling high-resolution color and texture variations. We implemented our method in a tool that allows users to assign desired properties to 3D models and creates corresponding 3D printing instructions. We demonstrate our method with three temperature-responsive materials: a foaming filament, a filament with wood fibers, and a filament with cork particles. These filaments respond to temperature by changing color, roughness, transparency, and gloss. Our technical evaluation reveals the capabilities of our method in achieving sufficient resolution and color shade range that allows surface details such as small text, photos, and QR codes on 3D-printed objects. Finally, we provide application examples demonstrating the new design capabilities enabled by Speed-Modulated Ironing.

Integrating microorganisms into artefacts is a growing area of interest for HCI designers. However, the time, resources, and knowledge required to understand complex microbial behaviour limits designers from creatively exploring temporal expressions in living artefacts, i.e., living aesthetics. Bridging biodesign and computer graphics, we developed FlavoMetrics, an interactive digital tool that supports biodesigners in exploring Flavobacteria's living aesthetics. This open-source tool enables designers to virtually inoculate bacteria and manipulate stimuli to tune Flavobacteria's living colour in a digital environment. Six biodesigners evaluated the tool and reflected on its implications for their practices, for example, in (1) understanding spatio-temporal qualities of microorganisms beyond 2D, (2) biodesign education, and (3) the experience prototyping of living artefacts. With FlavoMetrics, we hope to inspire novel HCI tools for accessible and time- and resource-efficient biodesign as well as for better alignment with divergent microbial temporalities in living with living artefacts.

Shape-changing textile interfaces have the potential to create unique functions, expressions, and interactions in everyday artifacts. However, the technical expertise required to fabricate and interact with these interfaces limits designers from rapidly iterating through diverse textile expressions. This pictorial presents TEX(alive), a low-cost and open-source physical-digital toolkit to facilitate the creation of temporal expressions in textile interfaces. TEX(alive) comprises pneumatic actuators that can be interactively configured across a 3d printed grid structure on the textile. Creative sessions with seven designers show that TEX(alive) supports the exploration of temporality in textile interfaces, opening up a design space for unforeseen future application scenarios and alive-like expressions in material-driven design. Finally, we suggest coupling TEX(alive) with a computational simulation tool to allow designers to predict spatial shape change when the textile interface increases in size or complexity.