Fluidic Computation Kit: Towards Electronic-free Shape-changing Interfaces
Abstract: Although fluidic computation has been utilized to develop interactive devices in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), the limited computation complexity of previous work hinders the exploration of richer interaction modalities. Based on the Fluidic Computation Kit we developed, this paper explores how unconventional mechanical computing can be leveraged to design shape-changing interfaces that integrate input sensing, output, and complex computation. After introducing the design space enabled by the Kit, we explain how to design four types of elementary computational components and six categories of operators. We end by providing several application scenarios which illustrate the Fluidic Computation Kit’s potential to build sophisticated circuits (e.g., a parallel processor) for use in the field of HCI.
Building interface with embedded mechanical computations enabled by Fluidic Computation Kit. a) Pick the elementary pieces from the component library. b) Construct an operator (register) via wiring the components. c) A parallel processor is achieved by combining different operators. d) A fluidic computation augmented chair that can monitor different sitting positions and alert the user when a poor posture is detected.