TOPIC: Embodied Fabrication (or Data Driven Ortheses)

Instructors:

Dr Joëlle Bitton
Luke Franzke
Florian Wille
Office hours by appointment
The course runs from 21.11.17 to 15.12.17, see timetable below for hours and classrooms.

Overview and Objectives

The course proposes an examination and speculation of technologies as they related to Embodied Interaction : mobile computing, wearable interfaces, location-based interactions and digital fabrication...
This examination covers societal, ethical and social influences.

This year, the course puts an emphasis on 'Embodied Fabrication', where digital fabrication is approached from the perspective of embodiment.
With more flexible and more accessible modes of fabrication, and with social aspects of fabrication emerging in recent years, we have the opportunity to investigate ways that we can transform our physical selves and environments.

During this module, we'll uncover some of these possibilities by designing and informing body orthotics with personal data. By group of 3, you'll propose such form of body extension.
Topics Design factors may include:
• material intimacy
• processes of fabrication / physical interactions that impact digital fabrication
• wearability
• performative aspects

Research Your work will encounter some of these research questions:

What does interaction Design bring to the topic of Digital Fabrication?

How can the theory of embodied interaction influence digital fabrication processes?

Can the outcome of the fabrication reflect the theory of embodiment?

What tools/technology can be used to facilitate this process?

How can data be visualised in physical form? Can the data be understood, or is it a purely aesthetic output?

Expectations and Gradings

Grades will be based on group presentations and exercises, class participation, documentation (journal) and final work.
Contributing to constructive group feedback is an essential aspect of class participation.
Regular attendance is required. Two or more unexcused absences will affect the final grade. Arriving late on more than one occasion will also affect the grade.

Final work 50%

Group exercises/presentations 20%

Journal Documentation 20%

Class participation 10%

Any assignment that remains unfulfilled receives a failing grade.

Deliverables

Kickoff Project Exercises
Final Project and Presentation
Documentation
Attendance during lessons
A 'Journal' is developed by each student that reflects on learnings from the course. It should be in the form of an online blog (ie. WordPress, Tumblr or other):
- The journal should be structured in a generally comprehensible manner
- The lecture notes, including annotations, are stored
- Notes, sketches for each lesson should be included as well

Course outline and Contents

Timetable
Kick off Exercise Brief
Main Project brief Brief
Lectures Lectures

Tools and Software

Rhino Trial (90 Day test license)
Rhino WIP (includes Grasshopper and requires Rhino Trial to be installed first)
https://shiftr.io/
Arduino wireless sensor kits

Readings

Embodied Interaction: Exploring the Foundations of a New Approach to HCI

http://acadia.org/papers

Creating physical visualizations with makervis

Supporting the design and fabrication of physical visualizations

Tutorials

Rhino

Grashopper

Arduino wireless sensor kit

Kit and Instructions

Kick off Exercise Brief: Analogue Data Collection

Look for sources of body data from the realworld. What traces do we leave behind that give us indications about our movements, vital signs or emotions?

Record videos or take photos to indicate and attemp to extract the data.

Pressentation: max 5 minutes

Group or individual work

...

Use Data-Colection, Generative Design Methods and Digital Fabrication to create a Data Driven Orthesis.

What drives the design? (example: is it function, speculation or critique)
Where could the data come from? (example: wearable sensors)
What metaphor could you use?
What inspires the form making process (example: fungus, cell division, mathematical geometry,…)

Pressenataion Format: Exihibition of Experiments and Final Protypes together with a verbal pressenation.

Presentation on: 14.12.2017

Documenation Format: PDF

Groups of three Students

///////// Work in progress below this line /////////

Kick off Exercise: finding data analog / digital

Ideation - speed dating

Looking for datasorces

Exercise: Finding a concept

kits
Skanect (3d scanning with kinect)
Meshmixer (editing meshes)

Teams:

Team 1: Adonis Bou Chakra, Maude Kyra Alexandra Richner Fabrice Spahn, Enea Francesco Ingellis

Team 2: Lara Natalia Hänny, Fabrice SpahnMaude Kyra Alexandra Richner, Andreas Dobler

Team 3: Mariana Pote, Jonatan Wetter, Alexander Blaschek

Team 4: Severin Candrian, Claudio Rainolter, Nadine Cocina

Team 5: Fernando Obieta, Gabriel Bach, Nadine Prigann

Embodied Fabrication Preliminary notes

Embodiment & Fabrication

material intimacy
processes of fabrication / physical interactions that impact digital fab
physical position towards machine / proximity
wearability
personal data
performative aspects

Topic in relation to Wearables

body extensions
visualising what is internalised
wearing the inside / out
bespoke fabrication for the body

Personal Data

making things from personal data
design by data
data storytelling / creativity
form follows data
tangible release of data

Pedagogy

Digital fab skills reminder for 5th semester students
Tech: working with presence sensor
See text and structure of previous class: https://selffab.wordpress.com

What does interaction Design bring to the topic of Digital Fabrication?

How can the theory of embodied influence digital fabrication processes?

Can the outcome of the fabrication reflect the theory of embodiment?

What tools/technology can be used to facilitate this process?

How cad data be visualised in physical form? Can the data be read, or is transformed purely into an aesthetic output?

Tools and Inspiration:

I've ordered the breathing radar sensor from xethru, which might be interesting tool for collecting vital functions data (Luke)

https://www.xethru.com/

Widget Connector

url	https://vimeo.com/112796215

Possible collaboration partners:

Could be an interesting contact for looking at motion/performance as an input for generating form. (Luke)

Hope you're well. Something you might be interested in - I met with director/choreographer Saar Magal recently, she's preparing for a new theater piece and and is interested in tracking movement and sound from performers and visualising it in real-time. The look/function is open, the interesting thing would be the possibility to project the visualisation back into a live performance. She seems open to ideas, and will be holding workshops with her performers to test out ideas later this year. I thought i'd put you in touch in case it fits somehow with what you or the students are doing.

Worflow

Students experiment a process in a Triangle : data collection / data mapping / fabrication

Focus on a methodology / pedagogy tool that students can reuse after (toolkit)

Pedagogical framework

how to start the creative process: with a problem, question or just with the desire to work with a specific dataset, or with an end result in mind

at least give a context to start the creative process: body/wearables/prosthetics/additional body parts

what do I need to mine/survey for a week to find the right extra body part I need

Assignment:

Possible titles

my perfekt new bodypart

Data collection (week 1):

Question: What data / problem to focus on.
Collect data: analog / digital
Presentations of the range of data collection: analog forms, electronic sensors, quantified self tools, users studies, users outputs (emails, text messages) // personal context of the body or the space around the body
Tutorial for a couple of sensors
Body analysis / scan (Kinect/iPhone App)

Inputs:

3D scanning (florian / luke)
Thermoplast input (florian)
Make volumes out of 2D surfaces (folds/origami), understand geometry
possible tools: pepakura, tinkercad, …

Data mapping (week 2)