SoftBioMorph: Fabricating Sustainable Shape-changing Interfaces using Soft Biopolymers

Madalina Nicolae, Claire Lefez, Anne Roudaut, Samuel Huron, Jurgen Steimle & Marc Teyssier. 2024.

Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference

Bio-based and bio-degradable materials have shown promising results for sustainable Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) applications, including shape-changing interfaces. However, the diversity of shape-changing behaviors achievable with these materials remains unclear as the fabrication knowledge is scattered across multiple research fields. This paper introduces SoftBioMorph, a fabrication framework that aims to integrate the fabrication know-how of sustainable soft shape-changing interfaces with biopolymers. Based on the example of Sodium Alginate, the framework contributes (1) a set of material synthesis processes that modify the biopolymer’s properties to fulfill different functions; (2) a set of DIY crafting-based assembling techniques that functionalize the material and assembling properties to achieve three primitive types of change in shape; and (3) a series of application cases that demonstrate the versatility of the framework. We further discuss limitations, research questions, and fabrication challenges, presenting a comprehensive approach to sustainable prototyping in HCI.

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Citation

Nicolae, M., Lefez, C., Roudaut, A., Huron, S., Steimle, J., & Teyssier, M. (2024). Softbiomorph: fabricating sustainable shape-changing interfaces using soft biopolymers. Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (pp. 496–508).

BibTeX

@inproceedings{nicolae2024softbiomorph, title={SoftBioMorph: Fabricating Sustainable Shape-changing Interfaces using Soft Biopolymers}, author={Nicolae, Madalina and Lefez, Claire and Roudaut, Anne and Huron, Samuel and Steimle, Jurgen and Teyssier, Marc}, booktitle={Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference}, pages={496--508}, year={2024} }