Hila Mor, Ken Nakagaki, Yu Tianyu, Benjamin Harvey Miller, Yichen Jia, and Hiroshi Ishii. 2020. Prototyping Interactive Fluidic Mechanisms. In Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI ’20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 881–884. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3374920.3374967

Abstract

In this hands-on studio we introduce a method of designing and prototyping fluidic mechanisms that utilize the flow as both deformation sensors and displays. A fabrication process and the featured materials will be provided to allow participants to design and prototype self-contained fluidic channels. These channels are designed to respond to mechanical inputs such as deformation and pressure with flow and color change. We will introduce a specialized software plugin for design and flow simulation that enables simple and rapid modeling with optimization of the fluidic mechanism. The goal of this studio is to provide researchers, designers, and makers with hands-on experience in designing fluidic mechanisms, coupling shape-change (i.e., deformation input) with displayed response. Our method allows participants to explore Tangible and Embodied Interactive applications such as on-body wearable devices for augmenting motion and animating objects such as interactive books, lampshades, and packaging.

Link to the studio website