Adroid1 enables users to borrow precision and accuracy from a robotic arm when using hand-held tools. When a tool is mounted to the robot, the user can hold and move the tool directly—Adroid measures the user’s applied forces and commands the robot to move in response. Depending on the tool and scenario, Adroid can selectively restrict certain motions. In the resulting interaction, the robot acts like a virtual “jig” which constrains the tool’s motion, augmenting the user’s accuracy, technique, and strength, while not diminishing their agency during open-ended fabrication tasks. We complement these hands-on interactions with projected augmented reality for visual feedback about the state of the system. We show how tools augmented by Adroid can support hands-on making and discuss how it can be configured to support other tasks within and beyond fabrication.

Advances in digital fabrication have simultaneously created new capabilities while reinforcing outdated workflows that constrain how, and by whom, these fabrication tools are used. In this paper, we investigate how a new class of hybrid-controlled machines can collaborate with novice and expert users alike to yield a more lucid making experience. We demonstrate these ideas through our system, Turn-by-Wire. By combining the capabilities of a traditional lathe with haptic input controllers that modulate both position and force, we detail a series of novel interaction metaphors that invite a more fluid making process spanning digital, model-centric, computer control, and embodied, adaptive, human control. We evaluate our system through a user study and discuss how these concepts generalize to other fabrication tools.

Biosensing displays, increasingly enrolled in emotional reflection, promise authoritative insight by presenting users' emotions as discrete categories. Rather than machines interpreting emotions, we sought to explore an alternative with emotional biosensing displays in which users formed their own interpretations and felt comfortable critiquing the display. So, we designed, implemented, and deployed, as a technology probe, an emotional biosensory display: Ripple is a shirt whose pattern changes color responding to the wearer's skin conductance, which is associated with excitement. 17 participants wore Ripple over 2 days of daily life. While some participants appreciated the 'physical connection' Ripple provided between body and emotion, for others Ripple fostered insecurities about 'how much' feeling they had. Despite our design intentions, we found participants rarely questioned the display's relation to their feelings. Using biopolitics to speculate on Ripple's surprising authority, we highlight ethical stakes of biosensory representations for sense of self and ways of feeling.

Digital fabrication tools have broadened participation in making and enabled new methods of rapid physical prototyping across diverse materials. We present a novel smart tool designed to complement one of the first materials employed by humans - wood - and celebrate the fabrication practice of joinery. Our tool, MatchSticks, is a digital fabrication system tailored for joinery. Combining a portable CNC machine, touchscreen user interface, and parametric joint library, MatchSticks enables makers of varying skill to rapidly explore and create artifacts from wood. Our system embodies tacit woodworking knowledge and distills the distributed workflow of CNC tools into a hand tool; it operates on materials existing machines find difficult, produces assemblies much larger than its workspace, and supports the parallel creation of geometries. We describe the workflow and technical details of our system, present example artifacts produced by our tool, and report results from our user study.

This paper explores the social meaning of clothing-based displays of biosignals. How do friends make sense of their own and each other's skin conductance display in the context of a conversation? We developed Hint, a dynamic thermochromic t-shirt whose ambiguous pattern changes color when its wearer's skin conductance increases, an indication of sudden arousal. We investigated how pairs of friends each wearing the shirt conversed and interpreted the display. Participants shared a broad range of interpretations; e.g., joy and embarrassment were associated with an increase in skin conductance. Additionally, participants expressed desires for their skin conductance display to help validate their feelings and show emotional engagement with others. We explore ambiguity in the context of clothing-based information displays and discuss how skin conductance display became part of social performance in our study. From there, we suggest framing biosignals as social cues along with facial expression, gestures, etc., and begin to question what design territories this might uncover.

In 2012, air pollution in both cities and rural areas was estimated to have caused 3.7 million premature deaths, 88% of those in at risk communities. The primary pollutant was small airborne particulate matter of 10 microns or less in diameter which led to the development of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. In response, we developed MyPart, the first personal, portable, and accurate particle sensor under $50 capable of distinguishing and counting differently sized particles. We demonstrate how MyPart offers substantial enhancements over most existing air particle sensors by simultaneously improving accessibility, flexibility, portability, and accuracy. We describe the evolution and implementation of the sensor design, demonstrate its performance across twenty everyday urban environments versus a calibrated instrument, and conduct a preliminary user study to report on the overall user experience of MyPart. We also present a novel smart-phone visualization interface and a series of simple form factor adaptations of our design.

Sensory Triptych is a set of exploratory, interactive sensors designed for children that invite "new ways of seeing" our world from the perspective of the here (the earth, air, and water around us), near (things just out of sight), and out there (orbiting satellites and space junk) using familiar and novel interfaces, affordances, and narratives. We present a series of novel physical design prototypes that reframe sensing technologies for children that foster an early adoption of technology usage for exploring, understanding, communicating, sharing, and changing our world. Finally, we discuss how such designs expand the potential opportunities and landscapes for our future interactive systems and experiences within the UIST community.