devendorf

Devendorf awarded $1.9 million in grants to investigate potential for textiles in everything from medical devices to aerospace

Michael Kwolek — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 15:51:25 +0000

Devendorf awarded $1.9 million in grants to investigate potential for textiles in everything from medical devices to aerospace Michael Kwolek Fri, 08/14/2026 - 09:51

Textiles have the potential to solve many engineering problems. They allow for combining different materials into complex forms with desirable properties like softness, pliability and customizability.

Associate professor and Unstable Design Lab director, Laura Devendorf, works at the intersection between engineering and craft to explore the possibilities textiles have to impact scientific discovery while also supporting creative practice.

This year, Devendorf has been awarded two National Science Foundation grants totalling nearly $2 million.

The first, expands upon her CAREER award research:

POSE: Phase II: Transitioning AdaCAD to an Open-Source Ecosystem to Catalyze STEM Textile Applications [$1,455,225.00]

Learn more about the work leading up to Phase II: Devendorf weaves computer science and craft to explore new possibilities for textile design

Devendorf has developed AdaCAD software over several years as an experimental workspace, a tool that offers weavers and designers the ability to apply parametric design principles to weave drafting. In parallel, she has also focused on building an active community of users, contributors, and maintainers to ensure the project flourishes for the long-term.

Devendorf explained, “I believe that the open-source mentality that grounds the project is at the core of what stands to benefit artisans and engineers. We offer it freely online, so anyone who wants to access it can.”

“Many people who are trained in textiles are trained on proprietary software that is simply too expensive for an individual to purchase,” she continued. “AdaCAD gives these people an avenue to continue participating in research and practice.”

This grant will support outreach activities and programs to help transition AdaCAD from an open-source project to a self-sustaining open-source ecosystem. This may include public talks, conferences, workshops, residencies, and a summer school program, as well as microgrants and the formation of an advisory board.

Ultimately, the goal is to bring together experts from disparate disciplines to solve engineering problems with textiles and advance textiles craft through more accessible technology.

“Open-source represents the same set of practices in multiple formats,” Devendorf explained. “Some that are more legible to weavers (e.g. weaving drafts represented on the user interface) and some that are more legible to engineers and computer scientists (e.g. algorithms describing common design manipulations required in weaving). This creates a space for new communities, such as creative coders, to participate in the domain of textiles.”

Devendorf noted, “What excites me the most is being able to continue bolstering the community that is growing around the software. In some ways, the community is more powerful than the software and being able to provide resources, opportunities for connection, and spaces to share practices will be exciting in terms of what might unfold.”

Unstable Design Lab outreach activities supporting AdaCAD and designs artists have made with the software.

HCC: Lowering Barriers to Reproducibility for Woven Textile Technologies [$500,000]

Weaving offers enormous potential in engineering research—everything from biomedical devices to aerospace to wearables—for its ability to combine multiple materials into complex forms that are soft, pliable, and/or customizable. However, reproducibility at exacting quality standards is challenging because of how varied textile design and manufacturing systems are.

With this funding, Devendorf aims to solve this problem by developing tools to streamline the process of specifying functional requirements for a wider range of weaving machines. This will open the door to making weaving a viable avenue for a wider array of science and engineering domains.

The idea stems from a real-world problem. Devendorf explained, “I collaborated with a former artist in residence, Elizabeth Meiklejohn, and Irene Posch to make an incredible electromagnetic installation that was sadly lost in the mail after an exhibition. Elizabeth wove the original design, and we wrote a paper on the process of documenting the design. Yet, when Irene and I worked together to remake it, it was never able to match the quality or her original.”

“This process raised so many interesting questions about what we can and can’t encode about one's personal practice in our design,” Devendorf continued. “I don’t think we can ever make a perfect set of instructions to replicate a design, and that’s what is beautiful about weaving. But I did see opportunities where we could impose particular constraints to the process that might provide some guarantees that someone else could make it at some level of quality. The grant will explore those ideas more deeply.”

Ultimately, Devendorf’s research will further strengthen ties between artisan communities on one end and science and engineering researchers on the other to foster a greater exchange of technical know-how, materials knowledge and creative problem solving. Devendorf concluded, “If we had a better sense of what design modifications were commonly needed to adapt between prototype scale and industrial-scale machines, it could open pathways to products that meaningfully engage weaving.”

NSF funding will support building stronger ties between craftspeople and engineers and simplifying textile prototyping for researchers.

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ATLAS community presents new research on interactive systems at DIS 2025

Michael Kwolek — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 17:14:27 +0000

ATLAS community presents new research on interactive systems at DIS 2025 Michael Kwolek Thu, 06/26/2025 - 11:14

The 2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS) in Madeira, Portugal, features work from ten ATLAS community members representing three labs. This year’s event has five focus areas: Critical Computing and Design Theory, Design Methods and Processes, Artifacts and Systems, Research Through Design, and AI and Design with an overall theme around “design that transcends human-centered perspectives.”

ATLAS researchers study a broad range of topics, from human-computer interaction to biomaterials to woven forms.

Ellen Do, professor and ACME director, explains what connects the work our community is presenting at the conference: “I think all of the papers and presentations we have are on designing interactive systems. Some of the systems could be physical, some could be digital, some could be human-and-people, human-and-physical objects. So I think the theme about interactive systems and how you make systems interactive, what kind of user experience or human experience or immersive experience with the object or system or even the ecosystem, or the human communication system—I think that's all there.”

ATLAS research at DIS 2025

"Chaotic, Exciting, Impactful": Stories of Material-led Designers in Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Gabrielle Benabdallah, Eldy S. Lazaro Vasquez (ATLAS PhD student), Laura Devendorf (ATLAS Unstable Design Lab director, associate professor), Mirela Alistar (ATLAS Living Matter Lab director, assistant professor)

This paper explores the dynamics of interdisciplinary collaboration between designers, scientists, and engineers through ten stories as told from the perspective of material-led designers. These stories focus on material-led designers working in contexts like biodesign and smart textiles, where novel materials, fabrication methods, and technology often intersect, requiring cross-disciplinary collaboration. By including perspectives from designers within and adjacent to HCI, the study broadens the understanding of interdisciplinary teamwork that combines scientific, technical, and craft-based expertise. Our analysis highlights how designers navigate challenges like differing terminologies, epistemic hierarchies, and conflicting priorities. We discuss strategies such as material prototypes, attitudes of inquiry and openness, switching lexicons, and the value of interdisciplinary contexts. This research underscores designers as “translators” who mediate epistemological tensions, use tangible artifacts to communicate, and articulate possible applications. This research contributes ten stories as narrative resources for understanding strategies and fostering interdisciplinary spaces within HCI.

Towards Yarnier Interactive Textiles: Mapping a Design Journey through Hand Spun Conductive Yarns
Etta W. Sandry (ATLAS PhD student), Lily M. Gabriel (ATLAS undergraduate student), Eldy S. Lazaro Vasquez (ATLAS PhD student), Laura Devendorf (ATLAS Unstable Design Lab Director, associate professor)

The ability to create a wide and varied set of interactive textiles depends on the materials that one has available. Currently, the range of yarns that can be used to bring interactivity to textiles is greatly limited, especially considering the diversity available in non-conductive yarns. This pictorial traces a design journey into hand spinning that seeks to address this limitation and contributes samples of techniques and materials that could be used to create conductive yarns along with reflection on design methods that enabled us to explore a wider range of aesthetic expressions. We advocate for an approach that reconnects with the textiles in e-textiles, embraces divergence, and prioritizes the material as the driver of a design concept. We offer pathways for readers and researchers to continue this exploration within varied domains and practices.

Connect! A Circuit-Driven Card Game
Ruhan Yang (ATLAS PhD alum), Ellen Yi-Luen Do (ATLAS ACME Lab director, professor)

Hybrid physical-digital games often rely on screen-based interactions, which can detract from their tactile nature. We introduce Connect!, a card game that integrates paper circuits and real-time LED feedback, enabling players to construct functional circuits as part of gameplay. Unlike traditional hybrid games, Connect! embeds feedback directly into physical components while preserving material interaction. We conducted a user study comparing gameplay with and without electronic feedback. Our findings suggest that real-time feedback not only increased engagement but also altered players' behavior, encouraging rule exploration and emergent play. Our work contributes to tangible interaction and game-based learning, demonstrating the potential of low-cost electronics in enhancing interactive experiences.

Connect! game cards

From Data to Discussion: Interfaces for Collective Inquiry and Open-Ended Data Creation
David Hunter (ATLAS PhD student)

Data can enrich our understanding of the world and improve our society. However the datafication of our society comes with challenges for empowering communities. In designing systems for recording and representing data, a theme has emerged of these interfaces as the site of conversations and sense-making, and the participatory nature is valuable beyond the data itself. This insight has led me to investigate tools and experiences that enable open-ended data creation and exploration as a grounding for discussion and prompting action. The goal is to design interfaces and systems for exploring places and futures through data, to empower communities and supporting civic participation, learning and making, situational awareness, and scenario planning. In this pictorial I present five ongoing research projects investigating these ideas.

How to Data Walk

Knitting with unknown trees: assembling a more-than-human practice
Doenja Oogjes, Ege Kökel, Netta Ofer (ATLAS PhD alum), Hsiang-Lin Kuo, Jasmijn Vugts, Troy Nachtigall, Torin Hopkins (ATLAS PhD alum)

In this pictorial, we explore alternative ways of knowing urban trees through a more-than-human lens. Using a municipal tree dataset, we focus on “unknown” trees—entries unclassified due to error, decay, or absence—highlighting the limits of quantification and fixed knowledge systems. Urban trees, while critical for ecosystems, are often shaped by technological interventions (e.g., GIS, IoT sensors, AI diagnostics) that prioritize their utility over other expressions. We engage in knitting as a material inquiry to foreground nonhuman agencies and relational entanglements. Through reflective shifts and compromises, this project questions normative design practices, seeking to amplify nonhuman participation. We make two contributions. Firstly, we offer insights into fostering alternative, relational engagements with urban ecologies. Secondly, we reflect on our process of surfacing and working with agentic capacities, articulating guidance for other design researchers. Through this, we advocate for fragmented approaches that embrace complicity and complexity in more-than-human design.

Designing Interfaces that Support Temporal Work Across Meetings with Generative AI
Rishi Vanukuru (ATLAS PhD student), Payod Panda, Xinyue Chen, Ava Elizabeth Scott, Lev Tankelevitch, Sean Rintel

Temporal work is an essential part of the modern knowledge workplace, where multiple threads of meetings and projects are connected across time by the acts of looking back (retrospection) and ahead (prospection). As we develop Generative AI interfaces to support knowledge work, this lens of temporality can help ground design in real workplace needs. Building upon research in routine dynamics and cognitive science, and an exploratory analysis of real recurring meetings, we develop a framework and a tool for the synergistic exploration of temporal work and the capabilities of Generative AI. We then use these to design a series of interface concepts and prototypes to better support work that spans multiple scales of time. Through this approach, we demonstrate how the design of new Generative AI tools can be guided by our understanding of how work really happens across meetings and projects.

Members of three ATLAS labs show how interactive technology can create possibilities for new means of productivity, data analysis, creativity and play.

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Devendorf weaves computer science and craft to explore new possibilities for textile design

Michael Kwolek — Tue, 27 May 2025 16:11:51 +0000

Devendorf weaves computer science and craft to explore new possibilities for textile design Michael Kwolek Tue, 05/27/2025 - 10:11

Devendorf and colleagues tour a weaving facility in Yokohama, Japan

Michael Kwolek

Unstable Design Lab resources

ATLAS lab page

Unstable Design Lab website

Experimental Weaving Talk series

Instagram: @unstabledesignlab

When we think about engineering and computer science, textiles may not come to mind first. Yet woven forms can be extremely complex and are useful in many scientific applications in addition to being aesthetically engaging.

Laura Devendorf, associate professor and director of the Unstable Design Lab, blends computer science and materials research through the lens of weaving and textiles.

She has nearly completed her 5-year NSF CAREER award, which has supported her work in advancing e-textiles research while building a community of artists, artisans, engineers and designers dedicated to exploring new realms of textile technology.

In that time, Devendorf has created experimental woven forms that can record and replay sensory data, that behave in novel and useful ways, and that can even be programmed.

If e-textiles are to become part of our everyday lives, she believes they need to be more playful and soothing than typical smart devices generally feel—closer to a favorite sweater than a sleek smartphone.

Devendorf aims to change our minds about the importance of craft and expand where we consider solutions for challenges in everything from space suits to stents to treat coronary disease. She says, “It's not just a hobby for a lot of people. These practices of creativity have a lot of value professionally if you're an artist or if you're working in textiles or aeronautics.”

Software supporting soft goods

A key facet of Devendorf’s work has been the development of AdaCAD, “an experimental workspace that applies parametric design to the domain of weave drafting. It supports algorithmic and playful approaches to developing woven structures and cloth, for shaft, dobby and jacquard looms.”

As the only open-source software for many hobbyist and professional weavers, AdaCAD supports a growing community of craftspeople, engineers and designers—a group Devendorf has dubbed “experimental weavers.”

She explains that AdaCAD is designed to give “a new representation for” the incredibly complex designs many weavers create. “That representation affords different points of connection, relationships and possibilities. It's not figuring anything out for you, but it's representing what you're doing in a more flexible format.”

Transforming an image into a woven textile with AdaCAD

CHI retrospective

Laura Devendorf and colleagues at CHI 2025

Devendorf had a substantial presence at ACM SIGCHI 2025 conference (Special Interest Group On Computer-Human Interaction) in Yokohama, Japan. The centerpiece was a demo booth where she created a sort of “lab in a box” showcasing over 7 years of research she and her colleagues conducted at the Unstable Design Lab.

Within the context of this engineering and science-focused audience, Devendorf notes the idea was to “promote weaving and weavers as an approach to doing interactive technology. We're highlighting our residency programs and we're highlighting some interactive demos that have emerged from these programs” including conductive yarns and textiles that enhance interactivity, along with resources designed for community building.

This bridging of seemingly disparate worlds—computer science and craft, lab research and community building—exemplifies Devendorf’s work. Creating visibility between craft and engineering is key for both worlds.

Devendorf observes, “If we're getting so jazzed up about 3D printing and fabrication, here's a fabrication method that has history, that has culture, that evolved in different spaces, that's multi-material.”

“Then that's where the residency programs and some of the resources come in to make complex textile design, not less hard, but to equip you with the right resources to navigate that difficulty so you can take advantage of the full potential of weaving looms and materials.”

“Your material range is huge and your ability to tune it is huge, so this idea of if we need to solve problems in the world and we're not using every available approach, we can't be getting the best solution. You have all these established materials and tools.” We don’t always need to invent a new polymer when we have textiles with centuries of history that could be adapted to the same properties.

While in Japan, she collaborated with master craftspeople who use historic Nishijin looms to make extremely complex and delicate silk kimonos. Together they are exploring ways to adapt AdaCAD software to support this craft steeped in centuries of tradition. She also toured a traditional indigo dyeing plant and other textiles facilities to further explore the interplay between legacies of craft and modern tools.

Devendorf and colleagues tour a weaving facility in Yokohama, Japan

Traditional indigo dyeing in Japan

Creating space

Building a community that bridges craft and engineering spaces means bringing new people into the lab setting.

“The people who gravitate to the research in my lab are not the same composition as the people who come to it through engineering and computer science. There's certainly overlap, but on a statistical level, people who would not typically pursue engineering and science are showing up for weaving and having their expertise validated as already worthwhile rather than having to prove that they matter—I think that's an important moment.”

She elaborates, “I could have made AdaCAD and not talked to anyone, and that wouldn’t have been unusual. It could have gotten published. But I think community-building was implicitly a goal the whole time. Also, even the lab itself, I want it to be a pleasant space. I don't want it to be a factory. I think it has a warmth to it, and it has people who care. And so it's well on its way” to becoming a community space.

Traditional machines, future possibilities

Weaving outside the context of craft is often misunderstood as an idle hobby that is prone to imperfection and unpredictability. Devendorf notes, “People have no idea that this is relevant to the extent I have to spend time in the grant explaining what weaving even is, how it works, and showing several examples that clearly demonstrate how useful it can be within engineering spaces.”

She concludes, “There's so much to explore in these machines, and I think the people who are the most capable of exploring it all are craftspeople. So there's a slightly propaganda piece of: I think these looms can give us better solutions than modeling something on a computer and printing.”

Devendorf presented a retrospective of her work at CHI 2025 including:

The Unstable Design Lab's demo booth at CHI 2025

Demo: Experimental Weaving at the Unstable Design Lab

This demo showcased "experimental weaving" as it has been explored by researchers and experimental weavers in residence at the Unstable Design Lab. The demo featured interactive woven textiles, software to support complex woven structure design and instructional resources for visitors to explore in their research.

Workshop: How do design stories work? Exploring narrative forms of knowledge in HCI

This workshop covered how stories are built, what narrative traditions they draw from, how they co-constitute research processes and what kind of knowledge can emerge from them. They explored the role of storytelling in HCI; the craft of writing stories; relations between fiction, truth and knowledge; and the risks, tensions and limitations of writing stories.

Workshop: Gathering Textiles at CHI: Convening a Meeting to Share, Make, and Speculate

This workshop created a meeting place for CHI researchers engaging textiles in any capacity through a day of skill sharing and collective speculating grounded in the textiles techniques and histories of Japan.

Panel: Regenerative Material Ecologies in HCI

This panel brought together a diverse group of design researchers working hands-on with materials ranging from biological to algorithmic to discuss regenerative thinking, shifting the focus from merely mitigating environmental harm to actively fostering cohabitation within more-than-human ecosystems.

As a computer scientist and artist, Laura Devendorf blends engineering and weaving to empower the craft community while pushing the boundaries of textile science for applications in human-computer interaction, health, art, aerospace and more.

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Fabrics That Remember

Michael Kwolek — Fri, 18 Apr 2025 19:30:44 +0000

Fabrics That Remember Michael Kwolek Fri, 04/18/2025 - 13:30

Laura Devendorf describes how wearable technologies like e-textiles can help people to gather insights into and reflect upon intimate moments rather than to modify or enhance them.

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Devendorf bridges engineering and craft communities with new initiative

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 15:54:01 +0000

Devendorf bridges engineering and craft communities with new initiative Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 08/13/2024 - 09:54

Michael Kwolek

Weaving and engineering might seem unrelated on the surface, but they in fact have a great deal in common. Laura Devendorf, assistant professor at the ATLAS Institute and Information Science, is determined to build bridges among practitioners across these disciplines to unlock the potential for new lines of scientific and creative innovation.

To support this work, Devendorf, who directs the Unstable Design Lab, was recently awarded a U.S. National Science Foundation grant of $297,630 for phase one of a larger project entitled, “Cultivating an Ecosystem for Interdisciplinary Smart Textiles Research.”

The research builds on software Devendorf and her team developed called, AdaCAD, an open-source tool they describe as an “experimental workspace that applies parametric design to the domain of weave drafting. It supports algorithmic and playful approaches to developing woven structures and cloth, for shaft and jacquard looms.”

The aim of this new research, as Devendorf describes it, is to, “take this software that we built for doing complex weave drafting and transition it to a project where it is sustained and grown by a larger community of weavers and [those] who we call ‘textile-adjacent engineers’.” That way, AdaCAD can develop and adapt to the needs of a wider user-base over time as all good open source software does.

This work exemplifies the radically interdisciplinary work that the ATLAS Institute champions. By bringing together disparate experts and communities—in this case, artists, artisans, engineers and researchers—we create new approaches to discovery.

From adjacent to integrated
Textiles are pervasive, yet often misunderstood in engineering spaces. The surprising mathematical complexity, materials knowledge and innovation that have arisen over centuries of textile practice are often overlooked. At the same time, weavers who come from a tradition of craftsmanship, art and design may be unfamiliar with meaningful advances in the engineering space.

By bringing together these two worlds, Devendorf hopes to open up opportunities for breakthroughs in technology and craft, whether that is in advancing electronic-textile science or pushing the boundaries of artistic expression.

For example, an engineering team may seek ways to monitor health without the use of adhesives often required for electrodes, while weavers already have options for materials and techniques that could replace such adhesives. Yet both groups are often unaware of each other’s needs and skills. But overcoming this knowledge gap, Devendorf believes engineers and weavers could together achieve greater impact.

There are signs this is beginning to take place, and she aims to speed the process. Research labs at CalTech and MIT as well as industrial design studios around the globe have acquired digital looms to experiment with weaving advanced materials and experimental forms.

But first: listening
Phase I of this project will focus on fact-finding and planning. The team will lead community-engagement activities and trainings and gather points-of-view from craftspeople, designers, engineers and others across many communities.

Devendorf and her team have begun interviewing people from a range of overlapping disciplines. They include a weaver with a fine arts background who now works on woven implantables for a medical devices company and a textiles expert researching stronger, lighter woven materials for the aviation industry. Still others in the cohort are studying zero-waste, “whole garment” clothing manufacturing and human-computer interaction surfaces on the body. The range of applications for textiles is growing at an impressive pace.

Devendorf explains this recent uptick in interest: “Ten years ago, it was all about the maker movement and digital fabrication, and it took a while before people realized that textile machines are also fabrication machines that can do things that we're still trying to get 3D printers to do. Textiles are inherently multi-material. They are flexible, they can be made stiff, they can be soft. It's a totally different mindset to control a textile machine [compared] to a printer that is making stacks. There’s a big learning gap there, but you see a lot of fabrication people jumping in.”

The TC2 Loom by Digital Weaving Norway has also expanded access to advanced weaving techniques as a first-of-its-kind prototype-scale digital jacquard loom that is programmable with a bitmap image. Now you no longer need a factory-scale setup to experiment with textiles fabrication.

What’s next
For Phase II, the team will focus on cultivating the ecosystem through on-the-ground work with communities and creating opportunities for practitioners to share what they are making. Devendorf also aims to expand opportunities for craftspeople in scientific research and product design spaces.

She explains, “we have huge problems to tackle as a society. I believe that engineering can address some of those, but I don't think we can do it if we don't have access to every possible technique… We're overlooking a huge set of practices and people in communities that have knowledge we need to solve some of these bigger challenges. My hunch is that craftspeople understand materials, process and machinery where so much of engineering is happening at a simulation level [while] trying to engineer materials that behave like the simulations.”

By fostering interconnectivity between engineering and weaving communities, Devendorf and her team in the Unstable Design Lab will position textiles as a leading source for innovative solutions to global challenges.

The Unstable Design Lab director has embarked on the first phase of a years-long project to bring together engineering and craft communities to advance textile research across a range of scientific disciplines.

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ATLAS in Ireland: 12 community members present at TEI’24

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 19:05:23 +0000

ATLAS in Ireland: 12 community members present at TEI’24 Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 02/09/2024 - 12:05

Michael Kwolek

ATLAS is well-represented at #TEI2024 - the 18th ACM International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction. This year’s conference, in Cork, Ireland, celebrates “cutting-edge scientific research and art that is on the edge of disciplines and on the edge of new unique developments and possibilities.”

Research from 12 members of the ATLAS community including faculty, alumni and students is featured at the conference. The work spans a range of disciplines, including weaving, biomaterials, mixed reality and robotics. In addition, ACME Lab director, Ellen Do, acted as Co-Chair of Graduate Student Consortium; PhD student, Sandra Bae, was an Associate Chair for Pictorials; and ATLAS PhD alum, Fiona Bell, was an Associate Chair for Papers.

Research ATLAS PhD students presented at TEI’24

Loom Pedals: Retooling Jacquard Weaving for Improvisational Design Workflows
Shanel Wu, Xavier A Corr, Xi Gao, Sasha De Koninck, Robin Bowers, and Laura Devendorf

Abstract: We present the Loom Pedals, an open-source hardware/software interface for enhancing a weaver’s ability to create on-the-fly, improvised designs in Jacquard weaving. Learning from traditional handweaving and our own weaving experiences, we describe our process of designing, implementing, and using the prototype Loom Pedals system with a TC2 Digital Jacquard loom. The Loom Pedals include a set of modular, reconfigurable foot pedals which can be mapped to parametric Operations that generate and transform digital woven designs. Our novel interface integrates design and loom control, providing a customizable workflow for playful, improvisational Jacquard weaving. We conducted a formative evaluation of the prototype through autobiographical methods and collaboratively developed future Loom Pedals features. We contribute our prototype, design process, and conceptual reflections on weaving as a human-machine dialog between a weaver, the loom, and many other agents.

Bio-Digital Calendar: Attuning to Nonhuman Temporalities for Multispecies Understanding
Fiona Bell, Joshua Coffie, and Mirela Alistar

Abstract: We explore how actively engaging with the temporalities of a nonhuman organism can lead to multispecies understanding. To do so, we design a bio-digital calendar that brings attention to the growth and health of kombucha SCOBY, a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast that lives in a tea medium. The non-invasive bio-digital calendar surrounds the kombucha SCOBY to track (via sensors) and enhance (via sound) its growth. As we looked at and listened to our kombucha SCOBY calendar on a daily basis, we became attuned to the slowness of kombucha SCOBY. This multisensory noticing practice with the calendar, in turn, destabilized our preconceived human-centered positionality, leading to a more humble, decentered relationship between us and the organism. Through our experiences with the bio-digital calendar, we gained a better relational multispecies understanding of temporalities based on care, which, in the long term, might be a solution to a more sustainable future.

Wizard of Props: Mixed Reality Prototyping with Physical Props to Design Responsive Environments
Yuzhen Zhang, Ruixiang Han, Ran Zhou, Peter Gyory, Clement Zheng, Patrick C. Shih, Ellen Yi-Luen Do, Malte F Jung, Wendy Ju, and Daniel Leithinger

Abstract: Driven by the vision of future responsive environments, where everyday surroundings can perceive human behaviors and respond through intelligent robotic actuation, we propose Wizard of Props (WoP): a human-centered design workflow for creating expressive, implicit, and meaningful interactions. This collaborative experience prototyping approach integrates full-scale physical props with Mixed Reality (MR) to support ideation, prototyping, and rapid testing of responsive environments. We present two design explorations that showcase our investigations of diverse design solutions based on varying technology resources, contextual considerations, and target audiences. Design Exploration One focuses on mixed environment building, where we observe fluid prototyping methods. In Design Exploration Two, we explore how novice designers approach WoP, and illustrate their design ideas and behaviors. Our findings reveal that WoP complements conventional design methods, enabling intuitive body-storming, supporting flexible prototyping fidelity, and fostering expressive environment-human interactions through in-situ improvisational performance.

Making Biomaterials for Sustainable Tangible Interfaces
Fiona Bell, Shanel Wu, Nadia Campo Woytuk, Eldy S. Lazaro Vasquez, Mirela Alistar, and Leah Buechley

Abstract: 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.

Paper Modular Robot: Circuit, Sensation Feedback, and 3D Geometry
Ruhan Yang

Abstract: Modular robots have proven valuable for STEM education. However, modular robot kits are often expensive, which makes them limited in accessibility. My research focuses on using paper and approachable techniques to create modular robots. The kit’s design encompasses three core technologies: paper circuits, sensation feedback mechanisms, and 3D geometry. I have developed proof-of-concept demonstrations of technologies for each aspect. I will integrate these technologies to design and build a paper modular robot kit. This kit includes various types of modules for input, output, and other functions. My dissertation will discuss the development of these technologies and how they are integrated. This research will address the considerations and techniques for paper as an interactive material, providing a guideline for future research and development of paper-based interaction.

Research from 12 members of the ATLAS community including faculty, alumni and students is featured at the 18th ACM International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction.

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Unstable Design Lab 2023 Residency in Review

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 17:59:50 +0000

Unstable Design Lab 2023 Residency in Review Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 09/28/2023 - 11:59

The 2023 Experimental Weaving Residency, featuring Elizabeth Meiklejohn, has left us with new understandings about electromagnetics and cloth movement.

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16 Members of the ATLAS Community Present Groundbreaking Research on Human-Computer Interaction at ACM DIS 2023

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 19:43:45 +0000

16 Members of the ATLAS Community Present Groundbreaking Research on Human-Computer Interaction at ACM DIS 2023 Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 07/05/2023 - 13:43

Michael Kwolek

ATLAS is well-represented at this year’s ACM Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) 2023 conference convening at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh from July 10-14, 2023. This year’s theme is resilience.

"Resilience is at once about flexibility, durability, and strength as well as a sense of mutuality and hope where solidaristic modes of engagement make new kinds of worlds possible.

This also recognizes that resilience takes many forms in design discourse, ranging across: indigenous knowledge, more-than-human perspectives, and the relationship between human, material and artificial intelligences."

It is exciting to see members across more than half of ATLAS labs represented in this year’s proceedings, with broad-reaching research covering microbiomes as materials for interactive design; 3D printing with spent coffee grounds; personal informatics systems; improving cross-disciplinary collaboration among artists and researchers; expressive movement for altering emotions and awareness; and the intersection of crocheting and data. Take a look:

µMe: Exploring the Human Microbiome as an Intimate Material for Living Interfaces
Fiona Bell (ATLAS PhD alum), Michelle Ramsahoye (ATLAS affiliate PhD student), Joshua Coffie (ATLAS MS alum), Julia Tung (ATLAS BS student), and Mirela Alistar (ATLAS Living Matter Lab director, assistant professor)

Our bodies are home to an unseen ecosystem of microbes that live in symbiosis with us. In this work, we extend the “human” in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) to include these microbes. Specifically, we explore the skin microbiome as an intimate material for interaction design. Viewing the body as a microbial interface, we start by presenting a method to grow our microbiome such that it becomes visible to the human eye. We then present a design space that explores how different environmental parameters, such as temperature and growth media, can be controlled to influence the color of the microbiome. We further investigate how our interactions in a daily uncontrolled environment (e.g., exercising, hugging, typing) can impact the microbiome. We demonstrate several wearable applications that reveal and control the microbiome. Lastly, we address the challenges and opportunities of working with the microbiome as an intimate, living material for interaction design.

Designing a Sustainable Material for 3D Printing with Spent Coffee Grounds
Michael L. Rivera (ATLAS Utility Research Lab Director, assistant professor), S. Sandra Bae (ATLAS PhD student)

The widespread adoption of 3D printers exacerbates existing environmental challenges as these machines increase energy consumption, waste output, and the use of plastics. Material choice for 3D printing is tightly connected to these challenges, and as such researchers and designers are exploring sustainable alternatives. Building on these efforts, this work explores using spent coffee grounds as a sustainable material for prototyping with 3D printing. This material, in addition to being compostable and recyclable, can be easily made and printed at home. We describe the material in detail, including the process of making it from readily available ingredients, its material characteristics and its printing parameters. We then explore how it can support sustainable prototyping practices as well as HCI applications. In reflecting on our design process, we discuss challenges and opportunities for the HCI community to support sustainable prototyping and personal fabrication. We conclude with a set of design considerations for others to weigh when exploring sustainable materials for 3D printing and prototyping.

For additional details, see our article on how this and other Utility Research Lab projects won awards at the Rocky Mountain RepRap Festival.

Being, Having, Doing, and Interacting: A Personal Informatics Approach to Understanding Human Need Satisfaction in Everyday Life
Michael Jeffrey Daniel Hoefer, Stephen Voida, (ATLAS affiliate assistant professor, founding faculty, information science)

A grand challenge for computing is to better understand fundamental human needs and their satisfaction. In this work, we design a personal informatics technology probe that scaffolds reflection on how time-use satisfies Max-Neef's fundamental needs of being, having, doing, and interacting via self-aspects, relationships and organizations, activities, and environments. Through a combination of a think-aloud study (N=10) and a week-long in situ deployment (N=7), participants used the probe to complete self- aspect elicitation and Day Reconstruction Method tasks. Participants then interacted with network visualizations of their daily lives, and discovered insights about their lives. During the study, we collected a dataset of 662 activities annotated with need satisfaction ratings. Despite challenges in operationalizing a theory of need through direct elicitation from individuals, personal informatics systems show potential as a participatory and individually meaningful approach for understanding need satisfaction in everyday life.

Enhancing Accessibility in Soft Robotics: Exploring Magnet-Embedded Paper-Based Interactions
Ruhan Yang (ATLAS PhD student), Ellen Yi-Luen Do (ATLAS ACME Lab director, faculty member)

This paper explores the implementation of embedded magnets to enhance paper-based interactions. The integration of magnets in paper-based interactions simplifies the fabrication process, making it more accessible for building soft robotics systems. We discuss various interaction patterns achievable through this approach and highlight their potential applications.

[Workshop] Towards Mutual Benefit: Reflecting on Artist Residencies as a Method for Collaboration in DIS
Laura Devendorf (ATLAS Unstable Design Lab director, assistant professor), Leah Buechley, Noura Howell, Jennifer Jacobs, Hsin-Liu (Cindy) Kao, Martin Murer, Daniela Rosner, Nica Ross, Robert Soden, Jared Tso, Clement Zheng (ATLAS PhD alum)

While cross-disciplinary collaboration has long been, and continues to be a cornerstone of inventive work in interactive design, the infrastructures of academia, as well as barriers to participation imposed by our professional organizations, make collaboration for some groups harder than others. In this workshop, we’ll focus specifically on how artists residencies are addressing (or not) the challenges that artists, craftspeople, and/or independent designers face when collaborating with researchers affiliated with DIS. While focusing on the question “what is mutual benefit”, this workshop seeks to combine the perspectives of artists as well as researchers collaborating with artists (through residencies or otherwise) to (1) reflect on benefits or deficiencies in what we are currently doing and (2) generate resources for our community to effectively structure and evaluate our methods of collaboration with artists. Our hope is to provide recognition of and pathways for equitable inclusion of artists as a first step towards broader infrastructural change.

Refer to the Unstable Design Lab website for more details on this research.

[Demo] SoniSpace: Expressive Movement Interaction to Encourage Taking Up Space with the Body
Ruojia Sun (ATLAS PhD student), Althea Vail Wallop (ATLAS MS student), Grace Leslie (ATLAS Brain Music Lab director, assistant professor), Ellen Yi-Luen Do (ATLAS ACME Lab director, faculty member)

Movement forms the basis of our thoughts, emotions, and ways of being in the world. Informed by somaesthetics, we design for "taking up space" (e.g. encouraging expansive body movements), which may in turn alter our emotional experience. We demonstrate SoniSpace, an expressive movement interaction experience that uses movement sonification and visualization to encourage users to take up space with their body. We use a first-person design approach to embed qualities of awareness, exploration, and comfort into the sound and visual design to promote authentic and enjoyable movement expression regardless of prior movement experience. Preliminary results from 20 user experiences with the system show that users felt more comfortable with taking up space and with movement in general following the interaction. We discuss our findings about designing for somatically-focused movement interactions and directions for future work.

[Demo] Crochet and Data Activity Book
Mikhaila Friske (ATLAS affiliate PhD student)

This demo focuses around crocheting and data. In addition to a physical workbook for conference goers to peruse and try, there will be a few small set-ups for specific activities and a small craft circle for people to craft within if they so choose.

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ATLAS Institute Faculty Nationally Recognized for Radical Creativity and Invention

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 16:46:00 +0000

ATLAS Institute Faculty Nationally Recognized for Radical Creativity and Invention Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 06/08/2023 - 10:46

Michael Kwolek

The National Science Foundation’s CAREER award is among the most prestigious honors supporting junior faculty doing outstanding work integrating research and education toward a meaningful social impact. The CAREER award is highly competitive and is a strong indicator of future research success.

Award criteria focus on intellectual merit and broad impact—the NSF awards academic role models who have a plan to explore a body of significant research in their field. This balance of the desire to educate students within a pursuit of deep inquiry toward a purposeful goal is the signature of CAREER award winners.

At ATLAS Institute, we are proud to have had five faculty members who have received CAREER awards out of the nine so far who have been eligible. This remarkable achievement speaks to the nature of our research community as one that empowers creative engineers to bring their full selves to their work.

Ben Shapiro, Computer Science (2015): Constructing Modern and Inclusive Trajectories for Computer Science Learning
Laura Devendorf, Information Science (2020): Investigating Novel Tools and Collaborative Programs for Smart Textiles Innovation at the Intersection of Engineering and Craft
Danielle Szafir, Computer Science (2021): Developing Perceptually-Driven Tools for Estimating Visualization Effectiveness
Grace Leslie, Music (2022): Multimodal Brain and Body Music Interfaces to Promote Entrainment, Connection, and Creative Science Education
Carson Bruns, Mechanical Engineering (2023): Intradermal Biocompatibility of Nanoparticles as Minimally Invasive Implants for Human Health

ATLAS Director Mark D Gross explains faculty hiring: “Rather than saying, ‘We specifically want to hire a brain scientist,’ we say, ‘We just want to hire a really brilliant person.’ We seek applicants who are interesting to us and who are going to do great work. We believe in them.”

The power of the research

The University of Colorado Boulder is one of only 35 U.S. public research institutions in the Association of American Universities (AAU), a group widely recognized as America’s leading research universities. This emphasis on research undergirds everything we do at CU-Boulder overall and at ATLAS specifically.

ATLAS Institute is housed under the Research & Innovation Office at CU-Boulder, with degree programs in the College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS), itself a heavily decorated and high-ranked college. ATLAS contributes to the research rigor CEAS is known for while pushing the community’s perception of where serious inquiry can spring from.

For example, recent CAREER recipient and ATLAS assistant professor of mechanical engineering, Carson Bruns, studies new ways to apply nanotechnology for improving human health—but through the lens of “smart” tattoos that can change color with UV light exposure or temperature increases. This melding of disparate lines of interest—nanoparticles, smart technology, human health and body art—seeds unique, useful discoveries traditional methods might otherwise overlook.

Why ATLAS?

So what is it exactly about ATLAS that attracts such talent? Gross says, “Those who know what we're doing tell us we have a really interesting group of people, we’re unlike a traditional department, we’re very interdisciplinary, we blend fields, we’re open to change. Those are the kind of things that attract the people we hire.”

The term “interdisciplinary” refers to work in two distinct academic fields of study. At ATLAS, we push this notion further, to expand boundaries, to cross-pollinate and change how we think about thinking—deep, focused research into highly specialized topics is essential, but equally important is our ability to investigate ideas across a wide range of fields.

ATLAS faculty have a different way of thinking about problems, one that sparks teams to come up with novel solutions. Despite this often unexpected approach, their research is grounded in the real world, in designing tangible things and in creating tools for others to expand on the core idea. Consider the work that Laura Devendorf, assistant professor of information science, undertakes in the Unstable Design Lab—she develops advanced software that opens the craft of weaving up to new possibilities of form and design, empowering artisans to push the medium forward.

We will continue to champion this expansive view of interdisciplinary research at ATLAS as a model for how polymaths can pursue research that would be unlikely to find a home in traditional settings, particularly in the fields of engineering and design. Our success in attracting CAREER-worthy talent proves the power of our approach to radical creativity.

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ATLAS Professor Laura Devendorf Explores Innovations in Weaving at CHI 2023

Anonymous — Tue, 16 May 2023 15:45:43 +0000

ATLAS Professor Laura Devendorf Explores Innovations in Weaving at CHI 2023 Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 05/16/2023 - 09:45

Weaving has been a central craft in global culture for thousands of years—so ubiquitous that it often feels invisible. Laura Devendorf, ATLAS Unstable Design Lab Director, Information Science faculty member, is changing this perception by proving that weaving is very much a source of radical innovation, and inspiring others in the world of computer-human interaction to expand their conception of what advanced materials can look like.

At this year’s ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, in Hamburg, Germany, Devendorf presented research 5 years in the making on the intersection of human-computer interaction and textile weaving, a true melding of engineering and craft.

Her paper, AdaCAD: Parametric Design as a New Form of Notation for Complex Weaving (Laura Devendorf, Kathryn Walters , Marianne Fairbanks ,Etta Sandry [ATLAS Unstable Design Lab weaving resident], Emma R. Goodwill [ATLAS Unstable Design Lab member, undergraduate student]) was awarded Best Paper Honorable Mention at the conference.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7q3fc9aArM]

In addition to presenting the paper, Devendorf demoed her research, shared sample textiles and distributed workbooks to ground observers in an understanding of the craft and its potential in advanced computer-human interaction. Her open-source framework bridges communities of weavers and engineers around the common goal of pushing the boundaries of textile structure.

Weaving is not the flat plane art many think it is. It can be a medium for building precisely-designed 3D structures, interwoven shapes and generative patterns. Weavers can build these structures without adhesives from materials they can mend and reharvest.

Devendorf notes that she “has been interested in people working in textiles and seeing how that work is happening in all different spaces and from disciplinary perspectives. It feels like it’s building from many unique angles.” At CHI, she got to see how her work fits into so many disparate conversations. Indeed, one of the most exciting elements of the conference was showing tangible woven objects and proposing new ways to explore the techniques used to create them.

By opening up possibilities for how we make and interact with woven forms, Devendorf’s work has sparked dialog around the future of textiles. It is a visible technology—something you can hold in your hands—one that embodies experience, play and storytelling and encourages collaborative interaction.

For example, when we think about heirlooms, we envision objects passed through generations because they hold meaning. What if we could make that meaning literal? What if a mother could weave a blanket embedded with digital data that gives it context and a deeper narrative for her children and grandchildren? What if it could store new memories across generations? This could be possible through weaving electronic materials or even designing computer-readable woven patterns.

Devendorf takes a unique approach to thinking about her research. “We approach everything we work with as craftspeople, whether textiles, clay or software from a perspective of sculpting. Change a variable and see what happens, then follow that conversation to new design spaces.”

The future of human-computer interaction is not purely digital, it is very much embedded in craft. Devendorf’s work proves that fiber art is a medium for radical innovation.

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