Electronics prototyping platforms such as Arduino enable a wide variety of creators with and without an engineering background to rapidly and inexpensively create interactive prototypes. By opening up the process of prototyping to more creators, and by making it cheaper and quicker, prototyping platforms and toolkits have undoubtedly shaped the HCI community. With this workshop, we aim to understand how recent trends in technology, from reprogrammable digital and analog arrays to printed electronics, and from metamaterials to neurally-inspired processors, might be leveraged in future prototyping platforms and toolkits. Our goal is to go beyond the well-established paradigm of mainstream microcontroller boards, leveraging the more diverse set of technologies that already exist but to date have remained relatively niche. What is the future of electronics prototyping toolkits? How will these tools fit in the current ecosystem? What are the new opportunities for research and commercialization?  

There are currently few ways to reliably and objectively assess olfaction outside of the research laboratory or clinic. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for remote olfactory assessment; in particular, smell training at home is a promising method for olfactory rehabilitation, but further methodological advances might enhance its effectiveness and range of use. Here, we present Exerscent, a portable, low-cost olfactory display designed primarily for uses outside of the laboratory and that can be operated with a personal computer. Exerscent includes Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags that are attached to odor stimuli and read with a MFRC522 module RFID reader/antenna that encodes the odor in order to provide adaptive challenges for the user (e.g., an odor identification task). Hardware parts are commercially available or 3D printed. Instructions and code for building the Exerscent are freely available online (https://osf.io/kwftm/). As a proof of concept, we present a case study in which a participant trained daily to identify 54 odors, improving from 81% to 96% accuracy over 16 consecutive days. In addition, results from a laboratory experiment with 11 volunteers indicated a very high level of perceived usability and engagement. Exerscent may be used for olfactory skills development (e.g., perfumery, enology), and rehabilitation purposes (e.g., postviral olfactory loss), but it also allows for other forms of technological interactions such as olfactory-based recreational interactions.

Since the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), researchers have asked how intelligent computing systems could interact with and relate to their users and their surroundings, leading to debates around issues of biased AI systems, ML black-box, user trust, user’s perception of control over the system, and sys- tem’s transparency, to name a few. All of these issues are related to how humans interact with AI or ML systems, through an interface which uses different interaction modalities. Prior studies address these issues from a variety of perspectives, spanning from under- standing and framing the problems through ethics and Science and Technology Studies (STS) perspectives to finding effective technical solutions to the problems. But what is shared among almost all those efforts is an assumption that if systems can explain the how and why of their predictions, people will have a better perception of control and therefore will trust such systems more, and even can correct their shortcomings. This research field has been called Explainable AI (XAI). In this studio, we take stock on prior efforts in this area; however, we focus on using Tangible and Embodied Interaction (TEI) as an interaction modality for understanding ML. We note that the affordances of physical forms and their behaviors potentially can not only contribute to the explainability of ML sys- tems, but also can contribute to an open environment for criticism. This studio seeks to both critique explainable ML terminology and to map the opportunities that TEI can offer to the HCI for designing more sustainable, graspable and just intelligent systems.

This article explores the history of contemporary Spanish Do-It-Yourself (DIY) spaces (hacklabs, hackerspaces, fab labs, makerspaces and after-school academies) and the growth of each type since the 1990s. The development of these types of spaces is reflected against the commodification and commoditisation of DIY in Spain. The article argues that the removal of the political layer of the early Spanish DIY techno-tactical movements allowed a higher degree of dissemination within society in general, while reducing the emancipatory poten-tial of these new spaces. However, the analysis of the degree of com-modification and commoditisation of types of spaces in relation to the amount of spaces per type shows an anomaly for makerspaces. The authors reflect upon this anomaly and whether a data set enlarge-ment could correct it. For their analysis, the authors constructed a data set of events of the Spanish DIY history through the design of an ad hoc mixed method. Tracing events and spaces could not be done in a simple way due to the long time span of the study: older spaces existed in the pre-social network days, and new ones exist only in dedicated platforms for niche communities of practice. This method of tracing events and spaces is another contribution of the article as it could be used to make similar causality analyses of historical data in other case studies.

At the first signs of the Covid-19 pandemic, the uncertainty around the global stock of medical supplies sparked a response in the DIY communities around the world. In the case of Spain, a community called Coronavirus Makers (CVM) appeared to supply ventilators and personal protection equipment (PPE) to hospitals and people in need. This paper explores the evolution of this community-driven development, detailing the patterns proposed by members of the group acting as design experts to tackle different problems. More specifically, the paper uses face shields, the most produced PPE in Spain, as a boundary object to highlight the relationships between individuals, institutions, and companies. These objects of design, being devices for medical use, must overcome validation at the technical level. Authors will also explore some of the controversies surrounding the transfer of these products from horizontal innovation networks to traditional production companies. 

This paper introduces different experiences, from experiments to commercial kits, looking at how to make IoT easier to understand by users from a variety of age groups. The hereby presented trials cover highly complex technical platforms. Connectivity, data collection, visualisation, or analysis are concepts that participants in workshops and courses have been introduced to with different degrees of success. The different experiments are finally compared offering other scholars and curriculum creators a point of departure to further work.  

This paper introduces the experiments realized by Arduino Education in the field of educational robotics. The paper, written as a collection of annotated exemplars, covers a series of prototypes, kits, and full educational programmes which were tested with students of different ages and educators. Some projects are of a do-it-yourself (DIY) nature, a property we came to describe as DIY-ness, while some others have been manufactured and served to tens of thousands of students. There are however things in common that can help others in the conceptualization, development, and deployment of educational robotics initiatives.

Physical computing toolkits have long been used in educational contexts to learn about computational concepts by engaging in the making of interactive projects. This paper presents a comprehensive toolkit that can help educators teach programming with an emphasis on collaboration, and provides suggestions for its effective pedagogical implementation. The toolkit comprises the Talkoo kit with physical computing plug-and-play modules and a visual programming environment. The key suggestions are inspired by the results of the evaluation studies which show that children (aged 14–18 in a sample group of 34 students) are well motivated when working with the toolkit but lack confidence in the kit’s support for collaborative learning. If the intention is to move beyond tools and code in computer education to community and context, thus encouraging computational participation, collaboration should be considered as a key aspect of physical computing activities. Our approach expands the field of programming with physical computing for teenage children with a focus on empowering teachers and students with not only a kit but also its appropriate classroom implementation for collaborative learning.

Platform Design is a study of different viewpoints on the creation of digital systems, and how they converge in platforms designed, built, and managed by communities. As sociotechnical constructs in which features emerge through the interaction of different stakeholders, platforms are understood as both means and outcomes—the ‘things’ or boundary objects in a design process—generating the spaces where communities of practice can form. Utilizing two strongly interwoven timelines in education and research (both in academia and industry), the thesis shifts the centre of balance in actor–networks by iteratively recalibrating from a techno-deterministic analysis towards a community-driven one. The theoretical background in the fields of cybernetics, critical theory, design, and the sociology of technology frames the empirical work, which consists of academic publications, design reports, and the publicly available documentation of realized projects. In the space between theory and praxis, a methodological toolbox is developed, a posteriori revisiting experiences gathered over a decade Drawing on a series of functional concepts, the thesis proposes an alternative co-design framework, termed inclusive multiple prototyping. Meant to augment new sensibilities that are pertinent to the design process of platforms, this framework addresses the inherent complexity of actor–networks and human–machine communities. In practical terms, the thesis describes a series of projects, some of which can be considered platforms, while others would be better categorized as tools, toolboxes, kits, or infrastructure. These include co-creating the Arduino community, repurposing kitchen appliances for connection to the cloud, designing a modular prototyping platform involving programming and electronics, deploying an indoor location system, creating educational kits for upper secondary school teachers, and inventing new haptic interactive interfaces. Some of the projects required the long-term involvement of the researcher in intimate communities of practice; others were temporal interventions, yet reached thousands of users. Practice-based and transdisciplinary, the thesis contributes to the field of interaction design by bringing in elements of a sociotechnical discourse, while problematizing notions such as democracy and governance, openness of tools and outcomes, modularity, generalizability, and transferability—the three latter terms further fuelling the research questions. The research shows that these are properties that enable the creation of platforms, although the question remains whether there is such a thing as a standardized platform. While this thesis touches upon the potentials of state-of-the-art platform technology, it also points to the fact that there is work to be done, socially, ethically, and politically, when considering the augmentation of platforms for everyday use as pervasive and artificial intelligence agents.

Introducing physical computing into regular school classes is challenged by constraints of schedules and curricula structures, which do not allow for time-consuming electronics prototyping. We present a novel approach to prototyping with physical computing components with the Arduino-based TALKOO kit: It comprises hardware modules, a visual IDE and prototyping material. Sensor and actuator modules are pluggable and do not require soldering and prior knowledge in electronics. The components have the ability to "talk" back to the visual IDE and to a learning analytics system. A new paradigm for visual programming maps physical modules onto virtual representations on screen making programming more intuitive. The TALKOO kit expands the field of application of physical computing for children in regular school contexts. Preliminary evaluation results show that children were able to build elaborative prototypes within an hour.

This paper presents a recently started research project that aims to generate, analyze, use, and provide feedback for analytics derived from hands-on, project-based and experiential learning scenarios. The project draws heavy influence from digital fabrication activities and related inquiry-based learning. The intention of the poster is to raise the discussion about how learning analytics from the project can be used to support and enhance learning for tangible technologies, These activities include physical computing and other lab work for small group work in higher education and high school settings.

This poster discusses work on the design of a visual-based programming language for physical computing and mobile tools for the learners to actively document and reflect on their projects. These are parts of a European project that is investigating how to generate, analyze, use and provide feedback from analytics derived from hands-on learning activities. Our aim is to raise a discussion about how learning analytics, intelligence, and the role of learners’ documenting their work can provide richer opportunities for supporting learning and teaching.

Prototyping Futures gives you a glimpse of what collaborating with academia might look like. Medea and its co-partners share their stories about activities happening at the research centre – projects, methods, tools, and approaches – what challenges lie ahead, and how these can be tackled. Examples of highlighted topics include: What is a living lab and how does it work? What are the visions behind the Connectivity Lab at Medea? And, how can prototyping-methods be used when sketching scenarios for sustainable futures? Other topics are: What is the role of the body when designing technology? What is collaborative media and how can this concept help us understand contemporary media practices? Prototyping Futures also discusses the open-hardware platform Arduino, and the concepts of open data and the Internet of Things, raising questions on how digital media and connected devices can contribute to more sustainable lifestyles, and a better world.