TEI 2012 Studio Program
TEI Studios are participatory events that offer novel practical experiences to conference attendees with diverse skills and backgrounds. This year we are pleased to offer an exciting and diverse selection of studios that include plenty of opportunities for hacking, crafting, creating, and generally expanding your horizons. Come with an open, creative mind, and have fun!
The TEI 2012 Studios program will be held on Tuesday afternoon, February 21st, 2012. No other activities will be offered during the time slated for studios. Please sign up soon as space for individual studios is limited. Before signing up, review the details and requirements for each studio below. If you have questions about a specific studio, please contact that studio’s organizer listed below. If you have more general questions about the studio program, please email tei2012_studiochairs@googlegroups.com.
All Studios are held in Beamish-Munro Hall on 45 Union Street, except Studio 12, which will be held atGoodwin Hall Room 524, and Studio 13, which will be held at Fireworks on 56 Queen Street.
Studio Descriptions
1. SparkFun Electronics: ProtoSnap and Repurposed Electronics
Lindsay Levkoff, SparkFun
SparkFun Electronics will host a workshop based on the popular ProtoSnap development board (Arduino-compatible). The workshop will begin with an introduction to ProtoSnap & Arduino including code examples to get everyone comfortable and then we will have some fun creating sketches in Processing. Once everyone has successfully written some code we will split into small groups and explore avenues of usage with a focus on repurposing or recycling items and technologies. Participants are encouraged to bring interesting and unusual treasures that are begging to be hacked. Our team will facilitate a fun, hands-on hacking session.
Requirements: Laptop with latest version of Arduino and Processing
Room 314 214
For more information please contact: Lindsay Levkoff (lindsay@sparkfun.com )
3. Touch and Feel Soft Hardware
Ylva Fernaeus, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Anna Vallgårda, University of Borås
Mili John Tharakan, University of Borås
Anders Lundström, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Soft hardware refers to electronic components, coatings, and shells built from elastic, flexible, floppy, and malleable materials. By introducing these new materials we expect to open new paths for using electronics and computations. Building electronics with textile and other soft materials may easily degrade speed, power, and storage capacities; however, these constraints can be acceptable if not down right desirable in these new contexts. In this studio we invite participants to work with soft hardware in an open-ended design session, with a special focus on touch and tactile experiences.
Requirements: none
Room 228 313b
For more information please contact: Ylva Fernaeus ( fernaeus@kth.se )
4. RePlay: A Workshop Exploring Creativity In Action
Layda Gongora, Lancaster University
The RePlay studio will explore the creative design process of tangible interfaces in which physicality, context, service, form, spatial requirements, and technical requirements play an important role. Similar to body storming this workshop will explore movement as a tool. However, rather than having participatory design aims, the focus will instead be on improvisational creativity and how this type of thinking is useful for designers. We will use techniques in traditional Improvisational theatre to encourage an embodied creative process. We will also use techniques and technologies such as video analysis to facilitate awareness about knowing in action, reflection in action, and reflection upon evaluation skills which expert designers often take for granted yet are very important to their creative process.
Requirements: none
Room 331
For more information please contact: Layda Gongora (l.gongora@lancaster.ac.uk)
6. Makey Makey: Improvising Tangible and Nature-Based User Interfaces
Jay Silver, MIT Media Lab
Eric Rosenbaum, MIT Media Lab
David Shaw, Intel Labs
Makey Makey is a new platform for improvising tangible user interfaces. It enables people to make nature-based interfaces, it is compatible with all software, and it does not require the user to program or to assemble electronics. It is designed for a wide range of audiences, supporting ideation for experts and access for beginners. In the studio, participants will rapidly create several different user interfaces incorporating a wide variety of found objects, both physical and digital. There will also be opportunities to test out the newly created interfaces with each other, and reflect on the design of UI prototyping toolkits. We hope that Sparkfun will soon carry the platform for sale, and it is possible to replicate the platform's behavior with Arduino Leonardo.
Requirements: Laptop computer
Room 314 214
For more information please contact: Eric Rosenbaum and Jay Silver (Beginners-mind@media.mit.edu)
7. Designing Haptics
Camille Moussette, Umeå University
Stoffel Kuenen, Umeå University
Ali Israr, Disney Research
This studio proposes to tangibly explore the world of haptics to develop a greater understanding and sensitivity to this emerging field. The first part of the studio focuses on general knowledge about haptics, haptic and multimodal perception in humans, and key advances in actuator and sensor technologies to develop haptic interfaces. Numerous demos and testing platforms will be available to relate discussions with real haptic sensations. The second part of the studio aims to explore the various challenges and difficulties in designing haptic interfaces by directly building and sketching in hardware haptic interfaces. Participants will be invited to build their own haptic interfaces from various actuators, sensors and other building blocks. The studio aims to bridge the fields of haptics and design, and investigate various prototyping tools and approaches that can best support haptic design activities.
Requirements: Laptop with Arduino and Processing environments; Familiarity with Arduino and Processing
Room 315
For more information please contact: Camille Moussette (camille.moussette@dh.umu.se)
8. Fabricating Electronics with Rapid Prototyping Tools
John Sarik, Columbia University, Department of Electrical Engineering
Chao (Timmy) Li, Columbia University, Department of Electrical Engineering
Ioannis Kymissis, Columbia University, Department of Electrical Engineering
This studio will combine familiar rapid prototyping tools with unfamiliar materials to demonstrate how to fabricate electronic devices. Participants will design and fabricate a laser cut capacitive touch pad and a printed organic light emitting diode (OLED) display that can be combined to create a unique custom game.
Requirements: none
Room 108
For more information please contact: John Sarik (jcs2160@columbia.edu)
10. Electronics as Material: littleBits
Ayah Bdeir, MIT Media Lab, littleBits Electronics
Paul Rothman, MPS. ITP, NYU, littleBits Electronics
Electronics are everywhere. We now produce, consume and throw out more electronic gadgets than ever before. Yet, creativity with electronics starts when they can be thought of as sketching materials like paper, screws, cardboard.This Studio will allow participants to create prototypes of interactive gadgets using a diverse library of materials: littleBits (an opensource kit of pre-assembled electronics that snap together with tiny magnets), combined with traditional design materials (foam, fabric, paper, clay etc).
Requirements: none
Room 111
For more information please contact: Ayah Bdeir (ayah@littleBits.cc)
11. Introduction to Origami: Folding, Design, and Analysis
Jie Qi, MIT Media Lab
Jason Ku, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The mathematics of folding origami is relevant in the design of solar sails and airbags, to heart stents and proteins. This workshop is designed to be a crash course introduction to folding, designing, and analyzing representational origami. First, a brief overview of the history of origami will be presented, including its transition from a static, ceremonial tradition to a dynamic, artistic engineering science. Second, the tree theory method of representational origami design with respect to uniaxial bases will be introduced. Lastly, participants will be encouraged to design and explore folding mechanisms that can interface with flexible circuit materials and components.
Requirements: none
Room 322
For more information please contact: Jie Qi (jieqi@mit.edu)
12. Designing and Building Inexpensive Flexible Circuits
Aneesh P. Tarun, Queen's University
Peng Wang, Queen's University
Interest in flexible and non-planar devices has put a spotlight on flexible circuits, a technology that has been around for more than forty years. This Studio will introduce the prototyping of flexible electronic circuits at a low cost. The participants will be participating in brainstorming an interesting electronic project, designing circuit layout for it, etching and building functional flexible circuits.
Requirements: Laptop with Arduino and Processing installed Basic knowledge of prototyping simple circuits with a breadboard Basic programming skills with Arduino, Processing, or similar environments
Parteq Innovations Studio
Goodwin Hall Room 524
For more information please contact: Aneesh P. Tarun (aneesh@cs.queensu.ca)
13. Glass Blowing
David Holman
Glassblowing is an artistry that shapes, forms, and manipulates molten glass. Using fire and air, the glass is melted and blown into an aesthetically pleasing parison structure. Studio participants will learn the art, first, by practicing on a small glass object and then by making a larger, more complex shape. Led by Arduino, electricity will added to this process: the glass object will be imbued with pixels and sensing, ultimately forming a computational glass material.
Requirements: none
For more information please contact: David Holman (davidholman@gmail.com)
