Digital Musical Instruments (DMIs) have been integrated into group music therapy, providing therapists with alternative ways to engage in musical dialogues with their clients. However, existing DMIs used in group settings are primarily designed for individual use and often overlook the social dynamics inherent in group therapy. Recognizing the crucial role of social interaction in the effectiveness of group therapy, we argue that Collaborative Digital Musical Instruments (CDMIs), seamlessly integrating social interaction with musical expression, hold significant potential to enhance group music therapy. To better tailor CDMIs for group music therapy, we engaged in a co-design process with music therapists, designing and practicing group therapy sessions involving the prototype ComString. In the end, we reflected on the co-design case to suggest future directions for designing CDMIs in group music therapy.

The key to preserving traditional crafts lies in living transmission, which is inseparable from sustaining artistic production, audience consumption, and progressive innovation with the physical media. As HCI researchers, we focus on the hybrid crafts field, which involves numerous cross-disciplinary integration cases between traditional craftsmanship and digital technology at the physical level, providing inspiration for innovating and enlivening traditional crafts. We conducted a multi-perspective review of 85 hybrid craft articles related to traditional crafts over the past decade, considering aspects such as craft categories, digital technology, target users, and research areas. Through reflection, we propose a design framework for fostering innovation and revitalizing traditional crafts. This paper aims to offer insight into the innovation and enlivenment of traditional crafts through a hybrid craft perspective while also serving as a first review of the hybrid craft field from the traditional craftsmanship perspective.

Digital technologies can conduct an important role in preserving intangible cultural heritage (ICH). Nonetheless, existing work tends to be limited to digital storage, presentation, dissemination, and education, with comparatively little concentrating on production and reproduction of the craft, the key to revitalizing ICH. In this paper, we explore digital making as an approach for both the inheritance and innovation of ICH handicrafts. Taking Hairy Monkey craftsmanship as an instance, we conducted a workshop with 15 groups of makers, teaching them the traditional Hairy Monkey craft and subsequently enabling them to create innovative works with digital technologies in their own time. As revealed by our interviews with these participants, ICH brings cultural inspiration to digital making, and digital making rejuvenates ICH through innovative art forms and its positive influence on participants. As demonstrated in this paper, digital technologies can be deeply integrated with ICH through making to revitalize ICH from the core through living transmission.

Background This paper introduces a versatile edutainment platform based on a swarm robotics system that can support multiple interaction methods. We aim to create a re-usable open-ended tangible tool for a variety of educational and entertainment scenarios by utilizing the unique advantages of swarm robots such as flexible mobility, mutual perception, and free control of robot number. Methods Compared with the tangible user interface, the swarm user interface (SUI) possesses more flexible locomotion and more controllable widgets. However, research on SUI is still limited to system construction, and the upper interaction modes along with vivid applications have not been sufficiently studied. Results This study illustrates possible interaction modes for swarm robotics and feasible application scenarios based on these fundamental interaction modes. We also discuss the implementation of swarm robotics (including software and hardware), then design several simple experiments to verify the location accuracy of the swarm robotics system.