Digital fabrication is changing the way physical objects are designed, prototyped, and produced. It offers many opportunities for human-computer interaction (HCI) research and, in turn, HCI can broaden the accessibility and reach of digital fabrication. This workshop seeks to connect HCI researchers interested in digital fabrication and share their research with the broader community. The one-day workshop will include discussion and hands-on activities.
Workshop Submissions
Interested parties are invited to submit entries that can be featured as blog posts. These submissions can describe participants’ research or discuss topics of relevance to the workshop. The text should be around 1000-1500 words, and should include images, videos, and links where appropriate.
Accepted submissions will be posted on this website prior to the workshop in order to foster discussion among workshop participants and others.
Topics of interest include:
- Fabricated interfaces and devices
- End user design of physical interfaces through fabrication
- Personalized objects and interfaces
- Design tools for fabrication
- Tangible and augmented-reality design tools for fabrication
- Interactive fabrication
- Community support for digital fabrication
- Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education through fabrication
- Do-it-yourself interfaces and devices
- Digital fabrication and craft
Participant-Led Activities
The second half of the workshop consists of two 90-minute sessions dedicated to activities suggested and led by individual workshop participants. Activities could include hands-on projects, tutorials, or extended brainstorming and discussion on a particular topic. We hope to have fabrication machines available for these sessions. Applicants interested in leading an activity during one or both 90-minute afternoon sessions should include a proposal in their workshop submission. We are working to coordinate access to some digital fabrication tools during the workshop.
Submission Details
Participants must submit materials in an plaintext or richtext/html email by January 18th, 2013 and will be notified of acceptance by February 1st. Please email submissions to fabworkshop (“a t”) media.mit.edu. A longer pdf in ACM CHI Extended Abstract format can be submitted in addition to the blog post, but it is not required.
Please note at least one participant per accepted submission is expected to attend and register for at least one day of the CHI conference. (See last year’s registration page for an idea of the conference fees.)