Hiroshi Ishii

ChainFORM is a modular hardware system for designing linear shape-changing interfaces. Each module is developed based on a servo motor with…

Pneuduino is a hardware platform for kids, students, artists, designers, and researchers who are interested in controlling air flow and pre…

Cells’ biomechanical responses to external stimuli have been intensively studied but rarely implemented into devices that interact wit…

This project introduces layer jamming as an enabling technology for designing deformable, stiffness-tunable, thin sheet interfaces. Interfa…

An enabling technology to build shape-changing interfaces through pneumatically driven, soft-composite materials. The composite materials i…

We present a stiffness-changing interface based on a magneto-rheological (MR) fluid. The device consists of a material surface with el…

This paper explores how an actuated pin-based shape display may serve as a platform on which to build musical instruments and controllers. …

uniMorph is an enabling technology for thin-sheet shape-changing interfaces. It affords actuation powered by environmental temperature chan…

The ability of shape displays to move and manipulate objects enables the assembly, disassembly, and reassembly of different forms and struc…

Andante is a representation of music as animated characters walking along the piano keyboard that appear to play the physical keys with eac…

Cord UIs are sensorial augmented cords that allow for simple, metaphor-rich interactions to interface with their connected devices. Cords o…

We propose Coded Lens, a novel system for lensless photography. The system does not require highly calibrated optics, but instead, utilizes…

Tangible CityScape is a platform for users to explore the real 3D cityscape by changing parameters such as population, building capacity, t…

This project presents a weight-changing device based on the transfer of mass. We chose liquid metal and a bi-directional pump to inject int…

Recent research in 3D user interfaces has pushed in two directions: immersive graphics and actuated tangible shape displays. We seek their …

aireForm is a dress of many forms that fluidly morph from one to another, animated by air, reflecting the shifting of our own personas. Pne…

Malleable user interfaces have the potential to enable radically new forms of interactions and expressiveness through flexible, free-form, …

An open publishing platform for visualization, social sharing, and data analysis of geospatial data.

We are collecting ever more data about our environment, from above using high-end satellite networks, as well as from below with the cheap …

Furniture is the infrastructure for human activity. Every day we open cabinets and drawers, pull up to desks, recline in recliners, and fal…

An environment for creative collaboration is significant for enhancing human communication and expressive activities. We introduce Second S…

Augmented Physicality aims to explore the causal relationship between virtual information and its physical counterpart. We look at the expl…

PingPong++ (PingPongPlusPlus) builds on PingPongPlus (1998), a ping pong table that could sense ball hits, and reuse that data to control v…

Relief is an actuated tabletop display, able to render and animate 3D shapes with a malleable surface. It allows users to experience and fo…

Long-distance families are increasingly staying connected with free video conferencing tools. However, the tools themselves are not designe…

Human beings have long shaped the physical environment to reflect designs of form and function. As an instrument of control, the human hand…

O-Link is a communication tool developed by NTT Comware in collaboration with the Tangible Media group. O-Link allows users to link video c…

We are developing gestural interaction techniques and applications using the g-speak platform from Oblong Industries. This work seeks to bl…

The Wetpaint project investigates new interfaces for exploring the history of a work of visual art. We are seeking intuitive metaphors for …

Picture This! is a video editing tool progressing toward children's natural expression of play while telling stories with their toys. We us…

Piezing is an outfit which generates power using the natural gestures of the human body in motion. Around the joints of the elbows and hips…

The WoW Pod is an immersive architectural space that provides and anticipates all life needs of the World of Warcraft player. Outfitted wit…

The AFK cookset is designed for the hungry role-playing gamer who can connect her food items, e.g., Spicy Wolf Dumplings, to her online coo…

We present the design of a cost-effective, wearable sensor to detect and indicate the strength and other characteristics of the electric fi…

Touch�Sensitive is a wearable device that leverages stress and provides comfort for people on the move. It is determined by how the body re…

Stress OutSourced (SOS) is a peer-to-peer network that allows anonymous users to send each other therapeutic massages to relieve stress. By…

Kinetic Sketch-Up is a system for prototyping motion and kinetic transformability into interfaces. A series of actuated modules allow users…

Bosu is a design tool offering kinetic memory�the ability to record and play back motion in 3-D space�for soft materials. It is used for mo…

We have created a system that allows a person's heart rate to be displayed on an ambient orb color display. This system uses a heart-rate s…

Slurp is a tangible interface for manipulating abstract digital information as if it were water. Taking the form of an eyedropper, Slurp ca…

Jabberstamp is the first tool that allows children to synthesize drawings and voices. To use Jabberstamp, children create drawings, collage…

SpeakCup is a digital voice recorder. Rather than being controlled via buttons and blinking lights, SpeakCup uses shape to proscribe functi…

GrabIt allows users to collaboratively explore the principles of power generation, transfer, and consumption via tangible wooden sticks. P…

This project provides new ways to work with Topobo motion sequences. The Backpacks are a series of physical components with a knob that can…

We propose a system that reveals hidden physical properties of objects and the environment, and that reveals objects and aspects of the env…

Amphibian allows users to easily imprint digital functions onto common everyday physical objects. Amphibian is a low cost, low infrastructu…

AR-Jig is a new, handheld, tangible user interface for 3-D digital modeling. AR-Jig has a pin array that displays a 2-D physical curve coin…

Remix and Robo are two sampler/sequencer controllers that allow children to engage in (1) storytelling, and (2) competitive endeavors with …

Plants are very common in our world and and contain a vast amount of information. Although there are open debates about the intelligence o…

We are developing a lower-cost portable system which allows passive RFID tags to be tracked on a flat surface. By creating a system that tr…

The Actuated Workbench is a device that uses magnetic forces to move objects on a table in two dimensions. It is intended for use with exis…

Senspectra is a computationally augmented physical modeling toolkit designed for sensing and visualization of structural strain. The system…

The �I/O Brush� is a drawing tool that not only releases ink, but also captures ink from the artist's immediate environment. Like an old pe…

PICO is a new type of human-computer interface combining the usability advantages of mechanical systems with the abstract computational pow…

We have developed Audiopad, an interface for musical performance that aims to combine the modularity of knob-based controllers with the exp…

Robo Topobo is a controller that children can use to save, replay, and adjust playback of up to four Topobo recordings. Robo introduces imp…

Glume is a computationally enhanced translucent modeling medium which offers a generalized, modular, scalable platform with the physical im…

Topobo is a 3D constructive assembly system embedded with kinetic memory�the ability to record and play back physical motion. Unique among …

The goal of this project is to allow designers to continue using the traditional drawing tools they love, but to digitally enhance the draw…

Illuminating Clay is system for the real-time computational analysis of physical landscape models. Users manipulate a malleable landscape m…

Super Cilia Skin is a multi-modal interactive interface, conceived as a computationally enhanced membrane coupling tactile-kinesthetic inpu…

CircuiTUI is an application for circuit design and modeling, intended to aid novice circuit designers or students in gaining intuition into…

The Furp ("Future of Urban Planning") project exists as a first step toward disseminating the Luminous Room project into the world at large…

Tangible Viewpoints is a storytelling application for interactive character-driven narratives that was designed for the TViews platform. Th…

CADcast is a system for projecting instructions into 3-D workspaces. It supports users in constructing three-dimensional structures with gr…

Senseboard is one facet of our using tangible media for manipulating abstract information. It allows the user to arrange small magnetic puc…

This project is developing new tools for querying databases through the manipulation of physical objects. Our approach should allow multipl…

Sensetable is a system that wirelessly, quickly, and accurately tracks the positions of multiple objects on a flat display surface. The tra…

Glass bottles have been a part of human culture for thousands of years, serving both practical and aesthetic functions. The "bottles" proje…

GeoSCAPE is a reconstructive tool for capturing measurement data in field archaeology and for facilitating a 3-D visualization of an excava…

How can we pervasively transform all of architectural space, so that every surface is rendered capable of displaying and collecting visual …

The genieBottles system presents a story that is told by three genies that live in glass bottles. When a bottle is opened, the genie contai…

HandSCAPE is an orientation-aware digital tape measure used as an input device for digitizing field measurements, and visualizing the volum…

TellTale is a story construction kit whose goal is to help young children create and experiment with the structure and content of personal …

The activeShelves are a networked system of surfaces, servers, and displays that give real-time data about a collection of physical objects…

Strata/ICC is a computationally-augmented, two-meter-tall physical model of a 54-story skyscraper, serving as an interactive display of ele…

The Strata project explores the design of layered, electronically-augmented physical models that serve as tangible interfaces to specific d…

TouchCounters are computational tags that track the use of physical objects. TouchCounters sense activity through magnetic, acceleration, a…

This project explores the creation and use of a physical/digital construction kit. Triangles is a physical computer interface in the form …

The pinwheels project continues the study of Ambient Fixtures to communicate digital information at the periphery of human perception throu…

musicBottles introduces a tangible interface that deploys bottles as containers and controls for digital information. The system consists o…

PingPongPlus is a digitally enhanced version of the classic ping-pong game. It is played with ordinary, un-tethered paddles and balls, and …

curlybot is an autonomous two-wheeled toy that can record and play back physical motion. As one plays with it, it remembers its change in p…

This project explores the use of physical fixtures and objects to display temporal information within an architectural space in a subtle an…

The musicbox is a tangible interface supporting remote awareness through the medium of music and light. The musicbox is linked over the Int…

The mediaBlocks prototype is a tangible user interface based upon small, digitally tagged wooden blocks. The blocks serve as physical icon…