Cyborg Crafts, a student-organized collaborative group comprised of five graduate students at the University of Colorado Boulder's ATLAS Institute, blends techniques from the fiber arts with cyborg-inspired technologies (e.g., open-source biosensing EEG headsets and RFID implants). Second SKIN (Soft Keen INteraction), intended to support this practice, is a handmade collection of four modular soft wearable sensors—momentary switch, pressure sensor, pinch sensor, and a gesture-detecting, capacitive touch sensor— and a temperature-dependent dynamic display. Each sensor has a unique outer shell texture based on non-woven textile techniques, and each supports a different sense.
Second Skin was published at TEI 2021.
About Cyborg Crafts
Cyborg Crafts explores both what’s on our minds and in our bodies. This approach challenges us to explore and integrate what are often seen as opposing themes: synthetic/organic, research/maker and craft/engineering. Cyborg Crafts’ researchers are committed to developing open-source, accessible projects to promote human augmentation. We take a craft approach to design, and our focus is on easily sourced materials and replicable documentation. All of this translates to hackable projects that can be enjoyed by both novice and experienced engineers.
Publications
- S. Sandra Bae and Mary Etta West. 2021. Cyborg Crafts: Second SKIN (Soft Keen INteraction). In Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI '21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 87, 1–3. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3430524.3444705 (Salzburg, Austria (virtual) Feb. 14-19, 2021).
Associated Researchers
