Bosu: a physical programmable design tool for transformability with soft mechanics

  • Authors:
  • Amanda Parkes;Hiroshi Ishii

  • Affiliations:
  • Tangible Media Group, Cambridge, MA;Tangible Media Group, Cambridge, MA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

Physical transformability is emerging as an important element of interaction design as advances in material science and computational control give rise to new possibilities in actuated products and kinetic environments. However, this transition also produces a new range of design problems-how do we visualize, imagine, and design the physical processes of transformation? This paper presents Bosu, a design tool offering kinetic memory---the ability to record and play back motion in 3-D space---for soft materials. It is used for motion prototyping and digitally augmented form finding, combining dynamic modeling with coincident sensing and actuation to create transformable structures. Evaluation from a workshop with architects and interaction, product, and fashion designers is presented discussing the ramifications of physically programming motion with a new soft materiality, moving toward new ideas in body mimesis and material construction for kinetic design.