Alganyl: Cooking Sustainable Clothing

In this article, we introduce Alganyl, a biotextile created through the embodied knowledge of cooking. Based on existing Do-It-Yourself (DIY) recipes for bioplastics, Alganyl is made from renewable resources, feels like vinyl, and can be re-used before ultimately being composted. We outline three guiding principles for designing with Alganyl: materiality, accessibility, and sustainability. Our replicable process involves cooking Alganyl in the designer’s kitchen, followed by cutting and heat-sealing to create clothing. We apply these guiding design principles and processes to make three articles of Alganyl clothing including a dress, a shirt, and a skirt. Lastly, we address the life cycle of Alganyl, paying particular attention to the clothing’s end of life, which we approach through re-cooking and biodegradation (60 days to degrade 97%). Through our experiences with Alganyl, we believe that it has the potential to bring a future where clothing is an autonomous form of self-expression that has minimal impact on the environment

Vapriikki case : design and evaluation of an interactive mixed-reality museum exhibit

Museums have the challenging job of educating while entertaining. In their attempt to achieve such, they have introduced the concept of “hands-on” exhibits, where visitors can interact first-hand with the phenomena being displayed. With the emergence of new technologies and devices, museums have exploited the opportunities hands-on exhibits can offer to further enhance interactivity. At the same time, researchers and museum workers have become aware of the importance of conducting evaluations to guide and assess the design and development process of these exhibits. Traditionally, exhibit evaluations have utilized ethnographically-oriented methods and gathered all data manually. Though some studies have used log file analysis to explore interaction patterns, evaluations still heavily rely on the traditional methods. This thesis explores the design and evaluation processes of interactive exhibits by presenting a case study of the interactive replica of Abraham Edelcrantz’s shutter telegraph developed for the Vapriikki Museum in Tampere, Finland. Additionally, this work investigates the usage of a semi-automated log analysis in combination with qualitative methods to evaluate interactive museum exhibits. The results of this thesis show that a semi-automated method can be used to separate and analyze sessions and conduct a longitudinal analysis on interactive exhibits. Furthermore, our findings indicate that the exhibit satisfied visitors with different interests because of its multiple appealing elements: problem-solving challenge, communication aspect and historical significance. Additionally, results show that interaction and collaboration in groups differs depending the age composition of group members. Finally, this thesis presents a set of design guidelines for interactive exhibits

Rafigh: A Living Media System for Motivating Target Application Use for Children

Digital living media systems combine living media such as plants, animals and fungi with computational components. In this dissertation, I respond to the question of how can digital living media systems better motivate children to use target applications (i.e., learning and/or therapeutic applications)? To address this question, I employed a participatory design approach where I incorporated input from children, parents, speech language pathologists and teachers into the design of a new system. Rafigh is a digital embedded system that uses the growth of a living mushrooms colony to provide positive reinforcements to children when they conduct target activities. The growth of the mushrooms is affected by the amount of water administered to them, which in turn corresponds to the time children spend on target applications. I used an iterative design process to develop and evaluate three Rafigh prototypes. The evaluations showed that the system must be robust, customizable, and should include compelling engagement mechanisms to keep the children interested. I evaluated Rafigh using two case studies conducted in participants homes. In each case study, two siblings and their parent interacted with Rafigh over two weeks and the parents identified a series of target applications that Rafigh should motivate the children to use. The study showed that Rafigh motivated the children to spend significantly more time on target applications during the intervention phase and that it successfully engaged one out of two child participants in each case study who showed signs of responsibility, empathy and curiosity towards the living media. The study showed that the majority of participants described the relationship between using target applications and mushrooms growth correctly. Further, Rafigh encouraged more communication and collaboration between the participants. Rafighs slow responsivity did not impact the engagement of one out of two child participants in each case study and might even have contributed to their investment in the project. Finally, Rafighs presence as an ambient physical object allowed users to interact with it freely and as part of their home environment