Fangtian Ying

Music-touch shoes: vibrotactile interface for hearing impaired dancers

The hearing handicapped children show a penchant for dancing and dance plays an essential part in education of deaf children. This paper introduces the Music-touch Shoes, a pair of shoes particularly designed for hearing handicapped dancers: The rhythm and tempo of music can be communicated and perceived through the vibrotactile interaction. The vibrotactile interface is applied to shoes because feet are among the body parts which are most directly involved in performing dancing rhythm. The different sequences, intensity and frequency of vibrations reflect different rhythm and tempo of music. This project sought to explore a way of making up for the shortage of hearing ability through interaction with other senses, such as vibrotactile sense, to fulfill the same dancing entertainment demand of the hearing handicapped people.

WeaveMesh: A Low-Fidelity and Low-Cost Prototyping Approach for 3D Models Created by Flexible Assembly

To meet the increasing requirements of HCI researchers who are prototyping a variety of forms to create novel interfaces under a ubiquitous situation, we present WeaveMesh, a low-fidelity and low-cost rapid prototyping system that produces 3D objects in a mesh structure. Inspired by hand-weaving craft, WeaveMesh supports a highly customizable software platform, which is applicable for simulating and facilitating freeform surface constructions composed of woven lines arranged in a regular grid, which can serve as a guide for easy assembly. In addition, mobilizable connectors are suggested to support flexible assembly, which can be revised, recycled, and reused to facilitate short iterations. Furthermore, compared to common additive and subtractive techniques, WeaveMesh has a better balance between time and material saving. In this paper, we will introduce the system in detail and demonstrate the feasibility of the technique through various 3D models in the area of interactive media, products and architecture.

CompuWoven: A Computer-Aided Fabrication Approach to Hand-Woven Craft

Weaving is a traditional technology for making everyday products by hand that involves interlacing planar pieces to endow tough and pliable properties, (e.g., bamboo and stiff paper) to create 3D shapes. The technique has been extensively applied throughout history by various means, and is favored due to its low cost, accessibility, and environmental friendliness. Traditional weaving technology, however, requires accumulated craft expertise and actual production through numerous iterations, which is generally very time-consuming -- this limits its design aesthetic and ubiquitous use. Inspired by these problems, we present a novel hand-woven fabrication approach called CompuWoven to customize and weave 3D objects from planar pieces. The key idea is to establish an approach for producing 3D objects that is similar to weaving tradition, but without the need for manual experience. In addition, CompuWoven eliminates the former need for supporting structures, reduces actual physical material waste and allows for more complicated and irregular designs.

Designing with Concrete For Enhancing Everyday Interactions

Concrete is a composite material that has mostly been used for buildings and road surfaces since early human history. It is also applied to contemporary product design, as it has rather interesting aesthetic properties. In this late-breaking work, we present a series of small-scale explorations of concrete: first in which we exploited its hydroscopicity to create an ephemeral and dynamic display, and second, where we conducted a tangible interface design to showcase the materials unique surface textures. By applying craft-based methodology to this project, we investigated the ways in which fabricating this material with digital technologies provides innovations within the HCI community. Most importantly, we attempted to discover fabrication techniques that facilitate artistic experiences and interactions with concrete without sacrificing its existing properties.

Situated Apparel: Designing to Reinforce Affective Communication

There is a prosperity in wearable media in data monitoring. Since the apparel can show personal tastes, emotions and attitudes, what if our clothes could express affective information throughout different situations? This paper presents a system for enhancing the experience of situated-base affective communication by information visualization. The paper discusses the leading features in a variety of specific contexts such as the information monitoring, the remote communication and the customization.

Constructive Play: Designing for Role Play Stories with Interactive Play Objects

Objects, whether toys or not, are likely to become the center of childrens game, which can trigger childrens exploration and imagination, and build the worlds environmental and psychological statements by manipulating something, to enhance the autonomy of children and inspire their creativity. This paper, based on scaffolding learning theory, puts forward the learning principle of constructive play suitable for learning in play school, suitable for cognitive behaviors of children aged 5 to 8 years old, and aims to encourage children to think creatively in the course of play, rather than learning knowledge and solve problems. We redesign the images, most commonly used by children RPG storytelling, and embed interactive intelligence, to better help children play games, stimulate their imagination and creativity in storytelling, and encourage them share with their companions and parents.

Toon-chat: a cartoon-masked chat system for children with autism

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have social communication difficulties partly due to unusual visual processing strategy on human faces. However, their strategies are similar on cartoon faces as normal chilren. In this paper, we present Toon-Chat, a video chat system with virtual cartoon masks to help ASD children enhance communication and emotion comprehension skills. The system is tested in a series of ABA training lessons and the results are promising.

LightingHair Slice: Situated Personal Wearable Fashion Interaction System

LightingHair (LH) is a lighting interactive system towards personal fashion based on wearable technology. This paper mainly discuss how light media emerges in our daily fashion life and the new possibilities brought with interaction and intelligence. 3 scenarios of ambient awareness, arousal awareness and social interaction were explored how environment and interactions can provide aesthetic support in personal headwear.

A weaving creation system for bamboo craft-design collaborations

As one of the most ancient crafts in the handicraft times, bamboo weaving dates back to thousands of years ago. The diversified bamboo weaving methods can be used to fabricate daily necessities, such as fan, basket, dustpan, etc. With the development of modern manufacturing technology, however, bamboo handicrafts are no longer popular, significantly due to their lack of modern aesthetic value. Organizations like the World Crafts Council (WCC) try to integrate traditional crafts into modern life, but the cooperation between designer and craftsman involves repeated communications via a laborious manual process. Therefore an interactive system is proposed herein to support the process from design inspiration to pattern abstraction to product creation. The MetamoCrochet system uses thermochromic ink to customize the patterns on woolen textile [Okazaki, et al. 2014]. Igarashi and Mitani presented a design system for card weaving to support the design of patters [Igarashi and Mitani 2014]. These cases which mainly focus on textile design, are easily modified and created in the process of knitting. However, the composition of patterns on bamboo-weaved products is difficult to modify, and can hardly be recreated during the weaving process, due to the hardness and toughness of bamboo material. Starting from the inspiration source for patterns, our system aims to, by presetting the patterns, simplify the bamboo-weaving craft and integrate modern aesthetic value into the design of daily products in modern times.

An EEG-based Adaptive Training System for ASD Children

Children with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) have difficulties in expressing their feelings and needs, their teachers have to be very familiar with them to adjust teaching contents in related training lessons. In this paper, we present an adaptive training system with EEG (Electroencephalogram) devices for autistic children. We designed an EEG helmet to monitor childrens attention levels, and a video chat system with virtual cartoon faces covered on teachers face. Cartoon faces are synchronized with the performers facial movements to help trainers express themselves in an exaggerated way. When the attention reduction is detected by the EEG helmet, cartoon face will adjust automatically, and try to draw their attention back through changing cartoon types, colors, brightness, etc. Each change and feedback from children will be traced by the helmet and analyzed for improvements. By continuous iterative learning, the system will become smarter in avoiding childrens physical exhaustion. The system was introduced in the form of a specific training lesson to an ASD school, and preliminary experiment has indicated an encouraging result.