ATLAS Projects

A computational design tool for smart textile weaving that blends features from traditional weaving software with circuit design tools.

Design interfaces that use augmented reality technology to superimpose data on robots to make working with them more intuitive.

BrailleBlocks is a tactile gaming system that encourages visually impaired children and their sighted family members to learn Braille together. It's comprised of a set of tangible blocks and pegs, and an associated iPad application with interactive, educational games.

Building a low-cost chemical synthesis robot, with the ultimate goal of automating the most tedious and time-consuming chemistry lab operations.

Scalable interface technologies for supervising aerial robots, as well as new algorithms for communicating robot state to users.

This project looks towards unconventional ways of representing data through the production of objects, namely, those produced in sound and yarn. 
 

This project was started as an attempt to understand the limits of design–what does it mean to design if it’s not about making something “better” or “easier.” Specifically, we thought back on our experiences as mothers and tried to develop methods to investigate that experience through design. 

Exploring 3D printing as an interactive medium with a fast and reconstructable shape formation system.

EdBoard Technologies includes colorful hardware and curriculum focused on teaching students as young as 6 about electricity and electrical circuits. With fun, tiered groupings of lessons, some of which involve storytelling, children progressively expand their understanding of electrical concepts. 

Vegetable oil-filled thin poly sheets configured using a modified CNC machine show promise for the development of flexible pumps, valves and actuators, opening the door to new shape-changing interfaces that are low-cost, modular, soft and conformable. 

Exploring how intentional engagements with chance can be implemented in digital fabrication systems.

A software framework that enables educators and other subject experts to create tactile representations that combine audio descriptions with kinetic motion.

Exploring ways for robots to detect specific kinds of human group interactions so they can behave appropriately.

The IRON Lab explores new ways to use inexpensive consumer robotics to make computer interactions more tangible, useful and efficient.

Video and animation are common ways of delivering concepts that cannot be easily communicated through text. This visual information is often inaccessible to blind and visually impaired persons, and alternative representations such as Braille and audio may leave out important details. Audio-haptic displays allow for the presentation of complex spatial information, along with accompanying description.

It Broadens my Mind documents a successful program to train young adults with cognitive disabilities in computing concepts, identifies instructional strategies and offers guidelines for developing tools and curricula to support this underserved population.

Jam Station utilizes various design techniques to make musical elements of a jam more accessible to novice and intermediate musicians. As collaboration between musicians improves, sensors embedded in each instrument triggers complex and colorful light displays, helping nonmusicians improvise music together.

The Light Orchard is an interactive installation that invites people to walk into a grove of futuristic trees, lit with color. The trees are aware of the presence of people in their space, and can respond in many different ways. Users can play different games, watch animations, and work together with different simulations, that allow them to easily collaborate, learn, and play together

Multiscapes is a journey of human connection revealed through an interactive installation that blends dance, technology, design and sound. The project centers on a male duet, and explores uncertainty and intimacy through visually and sonically active environments. 

MyCo Domicilia is a suite of creative explorations as a DIY resource for fabrication with mycelium for common household and domestic artifacts. 

We are designing an interactive installation in an escape-room style, where the user navigates a pitch-black puzzle environment and solely depends on dinoflagellates (bioluminescent algae) for guidance. The player is both dependent on the algae as its guide and is also the algae’s nurturer, as solving the puzzle feeds the algae.

Exploring tangible interfaces made with paper and computer vision through constructing and deconstructing printed fiducial markers.
 

An aerial robot with an expandable protective cage that deploys to encircle the drone when operating in confined spaces or near people. When flying in unobstructed airspace, the cage retracts to reduce drag and improve maneuverability. Proximity sensors can autonomously deploy the protective cage, or the operator can do so.

An augmented reality (AR) interface for sketching interactive graphics and visualizations that can be dynamically linked by moveable objects in the visual field.

A prototype system for presenting information to people with vision impairments that combines a touchscreen tablet, static tactile overlays and several small, mobile robots.

RoomShift is a room-scale dynamic haptic environment for virtual reality, using a small swarm of robots that can move furniture. By augmenting virtual scenes with physical objects, users can sit on, lean against, place and otherwise interact with furniture with their whole body just as in the real world. RoomShift has applications in virtual tours, and architectural design and interaction techniques.

Exploring how shaping carbon-coated paper with manual and digital fabrication processes can create functional and aesthetic physical interfaces.

This project aims to catalyze innovation in smart textiles by creating next generation rapid prototyping tools that integrate circuit and textile design.

A tangible block-based game that enables blind programmers to learn basic programming concepts by creating audio stories. 

This interactive installation features woven wool fibers laced with an intricate lattice of conductive thread and dyed with thermochromic ink. When the conductive thread is activated by movement sensors, they warm the fabric, causing portions to change color.

A magnetic breadboard for embedded computing that allows for the rapid prototyping of e-textile circuits.

Inspired by autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) media, the goal of this research is to construct a sonic toolkit for the recording and collection of sounds to support new and unconventional perceptions of one's environment.