2,645 research outputs found
Bagging by Learning to Singulate Layers Using Interactive Perception
Many fabric handling and 2D deformable material tasks in homes and industry
require singulating layers of material such as opening a bag or arranging
garments for sewing. In contrast to methods requiring specialized sensing or
end effectors, we use only visual observations with ordinary parallel jaw
grippers. We propose SLIP: Singulating Layers using Interactive Perception, and
apply SLIP to the task of autonomous bagging. We develop SLIP-Bagging, a
bagging algorithm that manipulates a plastic or fabric bag from an unstructured
state, and uses SLIP to grasp the top layer of the bag to open it for object
insertion. In physical experiments, a YuMi robot achieves a success rate of 67%
to 81% across bags of a variety of materials, shapes, and sizes, significantly
improving in success rate and generality over prior work. Experiments also
suggest that SLIP can be applied to tasks such as singulating layers of folded
cloth and garments. Supplementary material is available at
https://sites.google.com/view/slip-bagging/
An Investigation of Craft Practice in the Design of Electronic Textiles (E-Textiles) for Embodied Interaction
An Investigation of Craft Practice in the Design of Electronic Textiles (E-Textiles) for
Embodied Interaction
This research aims to establish craft practice as an approach to investigating materials and
processes that could benefit e-textile design and development. It explores how ‘value’ can arise
through innovative material combinations facilitated through collaborative partnerships, dialogue
and joint construction. Findings from the portfolio of practical projects suggest that the distinct
material qualities that comprise e-textiles have different roles in contributing to multisensory
experiences.
The convergence of computation, electronics, craft and design is identified as a field of creative
practice in the contextual review. The tangible nature of e-textiles facilitates embodied forms of
interaction to prompt actions through materials and activate our sensory awareness. Building on
the work of Dourish, the research examines embodiment, meaning creation and sense
perception for comprehending the nature of experience. It discusses commentators such as
McCarthy and Wright to recommend expressions of felt human life as a vehicle for enhanced
relations with technology.
The methodology generates knowledge through individual and collaborative creative action and
adopts craft methods and processes to frame the practice portfolio. Pragmatism influences craft
methods to recognise ‘thinking-through-making’ as a means of discovery that can support the
ongoing negotiation between intention, action and reflection. The practice portfolio is used as a
method of collecting in-depth practical evidence to generate knowledge undertaken through
creative engagement.
The research contributes a framework with a series of recommendations to advocate a materially
led approach to practice interwoven with concerns that engage collaborative, sensorial and
aesthetic interaction. Analysis of the findings promotes qualitative outcomes including
personalisation, multisensory engagement, and social value, indicating that applications of the
framework can support more enriching design contexts that engage technology
ICS Materials. Towards a re-Interpretation of material qualities through interactive, connected, and smart materials.
The domain of materials for design is changing under the influence of an increased technological
advancement, miniaturization and democratization. Materials are becoming connected,
augmented, computational, interactive, active, responsive, and dynamic. These are ICS
Materials, an acronym that stands for Interactive, Connected and Smart. While labs around the
world are experimenting with these new materials, there is the need to reflect on their
potentials and impact on design. This paper is a first step in this direction: to interpret and
describe the qualities of ICS materials, considering their experiential pattern, their expressive sensorial dimension, and their aesthetic of interaction. Through case studies, we analyse and classify these emerging ICS Materials and identified common characteristics, and challenges, e.g. the ability to change over time or their programmability by the designers and users. On that basis, we argue there is the need to reframe and redesign existing models to describe ICS materials, making their qualities emerge
Articulating Stitch: skilful hand-stitching as personal, social and cultural experience
This practice-led PhD research explores the nature of embodied knowledge acquired and practised through the rhythms and patterns of hand-stitching processes, such as embroidery, plain sewing and patchwork quilting, undertaken by individuals
alone and in dedicated groups as recreational craft, artistic expression and social life. The scale and pace of hand-stitching match those of the body, grounding cognitive and emotional experience in a tangible process. The hand-eye-mind coordination required cultivates a distinctive form of attention to the self, which has renewed importance in the context of the anti-
haptic experiences of screen technologies that infiltrate our daily routines in the home and the workplace. Working with the premise that skilled hand-stitching concerns more than technical ability, I examine how these activities articulate dimensions of subjective experience. In turn, I explore ways in which the relationship between an individual and a group is constructed through their crafting skills.
My previous experiences of textile crafting as a social activity drew me to this question, and my interest as a practitioner and teacher in the contemporary and future relevance of skilful work motivates me to better understand what it is that I, and many other stitch practitioners, do. With the tacit knowledge of a practitioner I know how to stitch, and from my investigations into the history and theory of textile art, craft and material culture I know about stitch. However, my view is that when absorbed
in the process of making other more immediate and personal sensations take over. An exploration of haptic sensations relative to these processes underpins the investigation, and I focus instead on the dynamic relationship between practical skill, the body and its proximity to tools, materials and other people during actual experiences of making – the repeated gestures, coordinated hand movements and the skilled precision of tool use and fingertip manipulation – to provide a new context for the study of embodied knowledge known in and through hand-stitching.
In order to explore this I have used a combination of ethnographic, auto-ethnographic and creative research methods including interviews, observation, video recording of a patchwork quilting group, participation in practical stitching sessions with a village embroidery group, undertaking workshops with students, and my own reflective stitching practice.
It has emerged from the research that patterns of hand-stitching processes share characteristics with certain modes of social interaction sought by participants in order to experience sensations of participation, belonging or interdependence. Similarly to other oral traditions, an embodied knowledge of the practice includes patterns of interaction and particular attitudes and behaviours that are inseparable from the practical skills.
However, people also stitch on their own; as a private, contemplative activity, hand-stitching allows a person to carve out time and space for introspective reflection. Whilst this could be thought of as a different kind of experience altogether, I suggest that mastery of these skills enables control over when and how to use them, which, I have found, allows a practitioner to adjust the type of experience sought: participation in a shared conversation or activity can be exchanged for isolated contemplation and a sense of self-reliance.
I conclude that hand-stitching surpasses its technical or artistic attributes when considered as a material practice that offers particular metaphors for other processes of joining, collaboration, integrity – or even separation and isolation. Practising these skills is possibly the only way to acquire this embodied knowledge, which needs to be understood as a mode of interaction if it is not merely trivialised as quaint, as domestic labour or archived as ethnographic curiosity or as art object
Design and semantics of form and movement (DeSForM 2006)
Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM) grew from applied research exploring emerging design methods and practices to support new generation product and interface design. The products and interfaces are concerned with: the context of ubiquitous computing and ambient technologies and the need for greater empathy in the pre-programmed behaviour of the ‘machines’ that populate our lives. Such explorative research in the CfDR has been led by Young, supported by Kyffin, Visiting Professor from Philips Design and sponsored by Philips Design over a period of four years (research funding £87k). DeSForM1 was the first of a series of three conferences that enable the presentation and debate of international work within this field: • 1st European conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM1), Baltic, Gateshead, 2005, Feijs L., Kyffin S. & Young R.A. eds. • 2nd European conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM2), Evoluon, Eindhoven, 2006, Feijs L., Kyffin S. & Young R.A. eds. • 3rd European conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM3), New Design School Building, Newcastle, 2007, Feijs L., Kyffin S. & Young R.A. eds. Philips sponsorship of practice-based enquiry led to research by three teams of research students over three years and on-going sponsorship of research through the Northumbria University Design and Innovation Laboratory (nuDIL). Young has been invited on the steering panel of the UK Thinking Digital Conference concerning the latest developments in digital and media technologies. Informed by this research is the work of PhD student Yukie Nakano who examines new technologies in relation to eco-design textiles
Organic User Interfaces for InteractiveInterior Design
PhD ThesisOrganic User Interfaces (OUIs) are flexible, actuated, digital interfaces characterized by being
aesthetically pleasing, physically manipulated and ubiquitously embedded within real-world
environments. I postulate that OUIs have specific qualities that offer great potential to realize the
vision of smart spaces and ubiquitous computing environments. This thesis makes the case for
embedding OUI interaction into architectural spaces, interior elements and decorative artefacts
using smart materials – a concept I term ‘OUI Interiors’. Through this thesis, I investigate: 1)
What interactive materials and making techniques can be used to design and build OUIs? 2)
What OUI decorative artefacts and interior elements can we create? and 3) What can we learn
for design by situating OUI interiors? These key research questions form the basis of this PhD
and guide all stages of inquiry, analysis, and reporting.
Grounded by the state-of-the-art of Interactive Interiors in both research and practice, I
developed new techniques of seamlessly embedding smart materials into interior finishing
materials via research through design exploration (in the form of a Swatchbook). I also prototyped
a number of interactive decorative objects that change shape and colour as a form of organicactuation,
in response to seamless soft-sensing (presented in a Product Catalogue). These
inspirational artefacts include table-runners, wall-art, pattern-changing wall-tiles, furry-throw,
vase, cushion and matching painting, rug, objets d’art and tasselled curtain. Moreover, my
situated studies of how people interact idiosyncratically with interactive decorative objects
provide insights and reflections on the overall material experience. Through multi-disciplinary
collaboration, I have also put these materials in the hands of designers to realize the potentials
and limitations of such a paradigm and design three interactive spaces. The results of my research
are materialized in a tangible outcome (a Manifesto) exploring design opportunities of OUI
Interior Design, and critically considering new aesthetic possibilities
Adaptive Multi-Functional Space Systems for Micro-Climate Control
This report summarizes the work done during the Adaptive Multifunctional Systems for Microclimate
Control Study held at the Caltech Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) in 2014-2015.
Dr. Marco Quadrelli (JPL), Dr. James Lyke (AFRL), and Prof. Sergio Pellegrino (Caltech) led
the Study, which included two workshops: the first in May of 2014, and another in February
of 2015. The Final Report of the Study presented here describes the potential relevance of
adaptive multifunctional systems for microclimate control to the missions outlined in the 2010
NRC Decadal Survey.
The objective of the Study was to adapt the most recent advances in multifunctional reconfigurable
and adaptive structures to enable a microenvironment control to support space exploration in
extreme environments (EE). The technical goal was to identify the most efficient materials,
architectures, structures and means of deployment/reconfiguration, system autonomy and energy
management solutions needed to optimally project/generate a micro-environment around space
assets. For example, compact packed thin-layer reflective structures unfolding to large areas
can reflect solar energy, warming and illuminating assets such as exploration rovers on Mars or
human habitats on the Moon. This novel solution is called an energy-projecting multifunctional
system (EPMFS), which are composed of Multifunctional Systems (MFS) and Energy-Projecting
Systems (EPS)
Flexible Object Manipulation
Flexible objects are a challenge to manipulate. Their motions are hard to predict, and the high number of degrees of freedom makes sensing, control, and planning difficult. Additionally, they have more complex friction and contact issues than rigid bodies, and they may stretch and compress. In this thesis, I explore two major types of flexible materials: cloth and string. For rigid bodies, one of the most basic problems in manipulation is the development of immobilizing grasps. The same problem exists for flexible objects. I have shown that a simple polygonal piece of cloth can be fully immobilized by grasping all convex vertices and no more than one third of the concave vertices. I also explored simple manipulation methods that make use of gravity to reduce the number of fingers necessary for grasping. I have built a system for folding a T-shirt using a 4 DOF arm and a fixed-length iron bar which simulates two fingers. The main goal with string manipulation has been to tie knots without the use of any sensing. I have developed single-piece fixtures capable of tying knots in fishing line, solder, and wire, along with a more complex track-based system for autonomously tying a knot in steel wire. I have also developed a series of different fixtures that use compressed air to tie knots in string. Additionally, I have designed four-piece fixtures, which demonstrate a way to fully enclose a knot during the insertion process, while guaranteeing that extraction will always succeed
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