It’s one thing to study how the relief and albedo of the ice sheets affected weather patterns during the Last Glacial Maximum 20,000 years ago. And it’s a whole other thing to develop an interactive, engaging museum exhibit on the subject for general audiences. But that’s just what teams from the (CIRES), the (NSF NCAR), NOAA and ATLAS managed to do.

Millennia ago, ice sheets formed over huge swaths of North America that were nearly as tall as some of our continent’s highest mountains. They were so massive that they essentially created their own weather.

Former CIRES postdoc Dillon Amaya (now at NOAA’s ) along with Kris Karnauskas, CIRES fellow and associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, with NSF funding. 

Researchers long hypothesized that the ice’s massive scale during the Last Glacial Maximum was enough to block the jet stream and change weather patterns sweeping in from the Pacific Ocean. For example, back then the area around what is today Southern California was much wetter while the Pacific Northwest was relatively drier. Today that is reversed.

Through advanced computer simulations, the CIRES team discovered that albedo creates a cooling effect that alters atmospheric circulation in ways that cannot be explained solely by the sheer size of ice sheets. Albedo is a measure of the amount of light reflected off of a surface—and ice sheets reflect a lot of sunlight, significantly impacting wind patterns. The research showed the Pacific Ocean was the driver behind the changes.

Translating Complex Research
In spring 2022, ATLAS offered a class called Design a Science Exhibit for ATLAS and Computer Science students. It centered on designing approachable museum exhibits that translate hard science for everyday people. Led by ATLAS director Mark Gross and adjunct faculty member Wayne Seltzer in collaboration with Eddie Goldstein from the Denver Nature and Science Museum, student teams partnered with researchers and museum specialists to prototype exhibitions that incorporated coding, materials selection, fabrication and storytelling.

Gross notes, “We should be teaching our engineers to communicate with broad audiences, particularly around climate change. We might do good science and engineering, but we’re not always good at communicating it to the public.”

A team of ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder students formed a group to translate the CIRES ice sheet research into an exhibit prototype, including, ATLAS PhD student, David Hunter; Natasha Smith (MS Environment, Environmental Policy); and ATLAS undergraduate students Caileigh Hudson, Logan Turner and Julia Tung.

Seltzer explains, “The that inspired this exhibit is not all that accessible to readers who are not climate scientists. The students focused on what they decided was essential knowledge—the factors that result in an ice age and how computer models can help us predict climate change.”

Experimenting with Form
The team originally conceived of a sandbox as the project medium. As you moved the sand around to build different topographies, visual projections overlaid from above would show how weather patterns change. The idea made sense in theory, but practical stipulations (sand can be challenging to manage in a museum space) pushed the team in a different direction.

Hunter details this evolution, “We made little blocks that represent [topographic features], and then you could put the blocks on top of each other so you could sculpt [a landscape.] As a team, we went about designing and building the whole rig and had a prototype by the end of the semester, and we got to show it alongside everyone else's work at NCAR.” 

NSF NCAR science educators were so impressed with the prototype that they invited the team to work on a permanent installation. 

Making it Real

The biggest challenge then became orchestrating all the different people and components involved in developing a functional exhibit that could live for the long-term with as little ongoing maintenance as possible. Hunter notes, “There’s the digital prototype building, but then there’s the physical make-this-real part as well as the education part and ensuring visitors would get the right message.” 

After two years of iterative collaboration with scientists, curators, coders, fabricators and educators, the exhibit is now officially on permanent display at the Mesa Lab Visitor’s Center. Thousands of guests each year will be able to explore how massive ice sheets can alter the climate in surprising ways.

Amaya related, “This was probably one of the most gratifying experiences of my scientific career. It's not often that a piece of research like this leads to such tangible educational outcomes, so I'm super proud of our team for seeing it through! It's my hope that this exhibit can help illustrate some of these exotic climate interactions so that visitors can leave with a better physical intuition for how and why things were so wildly different.”

If you go:

1850 Table Mesa Drive
Boulder, CO

Free Admission

Hours:
Monday - Friday: 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. MT
Saturday, Sunday & Holidays: 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. MT

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ATLAS PhD Shanel Wu recently concluded their participation in the Open Hardware Creators in Academia Fellowship, an initiative run by the (OSHWA).

The fellowship, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, brought together nine diverse, passionate researchers in the open hardware field to create assets to assist other academics studying the topic, support the movement, foster collaboration and amplify the power of open hardware in academia. Wu says, "I was excited to be part of OSHWA's work in building an academic community in open hardware, especially because the organization has been so involved with promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion."

As a member of the ATLAS Unstable Design Lab, directed by assistant professor Laura Devendorf, Wu centered their PhD research on making things that are both useful and beautiful, and exploring technical complexities through handcraft, including e-textiles, wearables and unique materials with embedded electronics. This culminated in their recently-published dissertation, Retooling E-Textiles for Coproduction: Weaving Circuitry as Cloth. 

Wu embarked on through the course of the fellowship, including talks, essays, documentation and articles, with particular focus on Loom Pedals, an open-source customizable interface for a Jacquard loom, designed to promote improvisation and experimentation for makers. In this work, Wu relates, "I learned to trust in my ability to contribute to my field and to have confidence in my value as a researcher."

An open-source approach to research and tool development is particularly important to Wu as they “believe in sharing knowledge outside of traditional institutions as widely as possible, [as the] work will be more impactful if it is openly available.” 

According to OSHWA, the fellowship program has achieved critical outcomes including:

• Innovative Designs: Participants have designed cutting-edge open source solutions in fields ranging from robotics and electronics to museum studies and environmental monitoring.
• Open Source Resources: A wealth of educational materials, guides and documentation has been created, making open source more accessible to the broader academic community and beyond.
• Community Building: The program has fostered a global network of open source enthusiasts, encouraging collaborative research, idea exchange and support.
• Increased Visibility: The fellowship has increased the visibility of open source research in academia, contributing to the global conversation about open science and technology in academia.

Wu has now embarked on post-doc research at Carleton College in Ottawa as Research Associate in the  working on wearable technologies and accessibility. The lab, headed by professor and Associate Dean (Research), Audrey Girouard, studies computer-human interaction through the lens of deformable materials and flexible displays. On this new endeavor, Wu says, "Working in the HCI accessibility space will be a great opportunity to do more community-based research, while continuing to explore textiles and handcraft in wearables."

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The ATLAS Institute is one of 12 research centers at ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder, each of which is uniquely positioned to cut across the vertical hierarchy of colleges, departments and programs. Institutes are deliberately interdisciplinary, drawing faculty from several departments to embark on unconventional lines of inquiry.

Some of the most valuable research takes place in the overlaps, intersections and margins. “We believe really interesting stuff happens in the spaces between disciplines,” says Mark D Gross, ATLAS Director. The institute aims to find and explore more of these often-overlooked areas as they tend to attract amazing people—those who could easily work in conventional departments, but whose interests are broader and more disparate.

At ATLAS, we have researchers from computer science, mechanical engineering, information science, music and the humanities working in close proximity. Gross explains, “As a community, our backgrounds are quite diverse, and you’ll see that as you visit our labs and meet our faculty and their students. I like to say that we breed and attract technology visionaries and virtuosos: people who have wild ideas and the technical ability to realize those ideas themselves.”

We’ve seen this approach pay dividends. Of our eight research-active faculty members, three have NSF CAREER grants, considered among the most prestigious awards for teacher-scholars. 

The ATLAS community has also recently garnered national media attention for a number of projects. Carson Bruns, director of the Laboratory for Emergent Nanotechnology, has been recognized for his work on tattoos that embed new technologies in the skin. Michael Rivera, director of the Utility Research Lab, has been spotlighted for research on transforming spent coffee grounds into a compostable 3D printing medium. 

In addition, ATLAS member-authored papers won awards at leading conferences this year including VIS 2023 and CHI 2023.

We make tangible and digital tools and methods that shape how people interact with the world: things you can hold, wear, hear and play with; materials designers can use to realize their own visionary ideas; systems that change the way you interact with computers and the way computers interact with you. This manifests in disparate ways—from complex woven forms to innovative biomaterials to haptics that respond with emotion-driven gestures to music improvisation with sonified brainwaves. 

Explore for yourself at the ATLAS Research Open House
Once a year, ATLAS opens its doors so the community can go hands-on with the radically inventive projects we pursue. The ATLAS Research Open House is a chance for lab teams to directly engage with colleagues, potential collaborators and those curious about boundary-breaking research. Stop by to discover what our labs are working on in the spaces between disciplines.

ATLAS Research Open House 
Friday, October 20, 2023
3-5 pm
Part of ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder’s Research and Innovation Week
Cost: Free!

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The Engineering Education and AI-Augmented Learning Interdisciplinary Research Theme awarded multiple seed grants this spring to help spur research teaming in the college and boost early projects with the high potential for societal impact, including to several ATLAS Institute affiliates.

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Over the years, the computer-human interaction field has seen many trends. For a time, gesture and pen-based interactions were key, then with the rising ubiquity of smartphones came a focus on haptic technologies. Now according to Ellen Do, ATLAS ACME Lab director, “material exploration” was the theme of the day at , the premiere conference on computer-human interaction. 

Where researchers tend to focus on advanced electronics and innovative fibers, Do champions the use of everyday components as the basis for radical creativity and invention.  

At the ACME Lab, Do notes that her students consistently look to humble, easy-to-source materials like paper, cardboard and even couch cushion foam for inspiration. These ubiquitous materials are often overlooked, but they offer many possibilities for developing ingenious tools for human-computer interaction that can be printed, cut and assembled with ease. 

Access to off-the-shelf tools allows ACME Lab researchers to speed the prototyping process, giving them freedom to quickly iterate and push their thinking. When paired with the advanced camera and sensor technology found in everyday smartphones and off-the-shelf electronics like microprocessors, the team has the power to create limitless forms of human-computer interaction.

The team discovered that paper markers make a viable alternative to physical circuits, requiring fewer tools and expertise to enable designers an easier path to exploring physical computing. They have built a programming library called Beholder, which empowers users to develop their own software leveraging computer vision (CV) markers. They presented this research at CHI.

Peter Gyory (ATLAS ACME Lab member, PhD candidate), S. Sandra Bae (ATLAS ACME Lab member, PhD student), Ruhan Yang (ATLAS ACME Lab member, PhD student), Ellen Yi-Luen Do (ATLAS ACME Lab Director, Computer Science faculty member), Clement Zheng (PhD alumnus, ATLAS ACME Lab)

[video:https://youtu.be/xYf1VJoqpBQ]

Do notes that ACME Lab has focused much energy on developing platforms upon which others can build out their own ideas. Put simply, she says, “We celebrate building things to help people build things,” including useful computational tools, process documents and 3D-printed devices. It is not just about prototyping; instead, ACME Lab aims toward “iso-typing”—functional tools that empower creatives, artists and scientists to make new and better things more easily. 

With the ACME Lab’s simple toolkit, designers no longer need to study advanced computer vision to use the technology. Instead of spending too much time just figuring out how to get things to work, they can focus on rapid prototyping with alternative controllers and interfaces to build their own gadgets much more quickly. Do and her team presented this concept to fellow members of the research community and global business leaders at the Beyond Prototyping Boards workshop at CHI.

It is by putting tech integrations together first and then exploring the design space that you realize more opportunities for innovation. As Do notes, “ATLAS is doing such a diverse research, which is pretty unique,” and creates more opportunities to cross-pollinate ideas and support one another’s work across the institute. 
 

Related research presented at CHI 2023

Fabricating Paper Circuits with Subtractive Processing
Ruhan Yang (ATLAS ACME Lab member, PhD student), Krithik Ranjan (ATLAS ACME Lab member, PhD student), Ellen Yi-Luen Do (ATLAS ACME Lab Director, Computer Science faculty member)

[video:https://youtu.be/v9W9n_Lstns]
 

Facilitating Physical Computing with Computer Vision Markers
Clement Zheng (PhD alumnus, ATLAS ACME Lab member), Peter Gyory (ATLAS ACME Lab member, PhD Candidate), Ellen Yi-Luen Do (ATLAS ACME Lab Director and Computer Science faculty member)

[video:https://youtu.be/c_pXZIerZY0]

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We are happy to announce that 19 members of the ATLAS community contributed to work accepted for the 2023 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, taking place in Hamburg, Germany, April 23–28.

Accepting fewer than 25 percent of submissions, CHI is the premier international conference on human-computer interaction (HCI), attracting researchers and practitioners from around the world.

A special shout-out goes to Laura Devendorf, Etta Sandry and Emma Goodwill, who were awarded an Honorable Mention (top 5% of submissions) for their paper, "AdaCAD: Parametric Design as a New Form of Notation for Complex Weaving."

Details of all accepted work by members of the ATLAS community, which includes faculty with tenure homes in the College of Engineering and Applied Science and College of Media, Communication and Information, are listed below.

ATLAS @ CHI 2023 Papers

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Laura Devendorf (ATLAS Unstable Design Lab Director, Information Science faculty member),Etta Sandry (ATLAS Unstable Design Lab weaving resident)Emma R. Goodwill (ATLAS Unstable Design Lab member, undergraduate student)

Woven textiles are increasingly a medium through which HCI is inventing new technologies. Key challenges in integrating woven textiles in HCI include the high level of textile knowledge required to make effective use of the new possibilities they afford and the need for tools that bridge the concerns of textile designers and concerns of HCI researchers. This paper presents AdaCAD, a parametric design tool for designing woven textile structures. Through our design and evaluation of AdaCAD we found that parametric design helps weavers notate and explain the logics behind the complex structures they generate. We discuss these finding in relation to prior work in integrating craft and/or weaving in HCI, histories of woven notation, and boundary object theory to illuminate further possibilities for collaboration between craftspeople and HCI practitioners.

Peter Gyory (ATLAS ACME Lab member, PhD candidate), S. Sandra Bae (ATLAS ACME Lab member, PhD student), Ruhan Yang (ATLAS ACME Lab member, PhD student), Ellen Yi-Luen Do (ATLAS ACME Lab Director, Computer Science faculty member), Clement Zheng (PhD alumnus, ATLAS ACME Lab)

The electronics-centered approach to physical computing presents challenges when designers build tangible interactive systems due to its inherent emphasis on circuitry and electronic components. To explore an alternative physical computing approach we have developed a computer vision (CV) based system that uses a webcam, computer, and printed fiducial markers to create functional tangible interfaces. Through a series of design studios, we probed how designers build tangible interfaces with this CV-driven approach. In this paper, we apply the annotated portfolio method to reflect on the fifteen outcomes from these studios. We observed that CV markers offer versatile materiality for tangible interactions, afford the use of democratic materials for interface construction, and engage designers in embodied debugging with their own vision as a proxy for CV. By sharing our insights, we inform other designers and educators who seek alternative ways to facilitate physical computing and tangible interaction design.

Netta Ofer (ATLAS Living Matter Lab member, PhD student), Mirela Alistar (ATLAS Living Matter Lab Director, Computer Science faculty member)

Designing with living organisms can offer new perspectives to design research and practices in HCI. In this work, we explore first-person perspectives through design research with Kombucha Scoby, a microbial biofilm. We began with a material design exploration, producing digitally fabricated and crafted samples with Scoby. As we noticed our felt experiences while growing and working with Kombucha Scoby, we shifted towards a reflective autoethnographic study. Through reflective writings, we followed sensory experiences such as hearing the Kombucha fermentation, touching the Scoby while harvesting it, and watching the slow growth of layers over time. Subsequently, we designed "sensory engagement probes”: designed experiments that bring forward new connections and communicate our process, motivations, and tensions that emerged while engaging with the organism. Lastly, we discuss how such design research can inform material design with living matter by creating space to contemplate "life as shared experience" and more-than-human design perspectives.

Keke Wu (recent ATLAS PhD student), , Emma Petersen (ATLAS MS alumnus), , Danielle Albers Szafir (former ATLAS faculty member)

Data is everywhere, but may not be accessible to everyone. Conventional data visualization tools and guidelines often do not actively consider the specific needs and abilities of people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD), leaving them excluded from data-driven activities and vulnerable to ethical issues. To understand the needs and challenges people with IDD have with data, we conducted 15 semi-structured interviews with individuals with IDD and their caregivers. Our algorithmic interview approach situated data in the lived experiences of people with IDD to uncover otherwise hidden data encounters in their everyday life. Drawing on findings and observations, we characterize how they conceptualize data, when and where they use data, and what barriers exist when they interact with data. We use our results as a lens to reimagine the role of visualization in data accessibility and establish a critical near-term research agenda for cognitively accessible visualization.

Keke Wu (recent ATLAS PhD student)

Visualization amplifies cognition and helps a viewer see the trends, patterns, and outliers in data. However, conventional visualization tools and guidelines do not actively consider the unique needs and abilities of people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD), leaving them excluded from data-driven activities and vulnerable to ethical issues in everyday life. My dissertation work explores the challenges and opportunities of cognitively accessible visualization. Through mixed-method approaches and close collaboration with people with IDD, my team and I ran experiments and developed guidelines to improve current visualizations, we interviewed people with IDD and gained an initial understanding of their daily data experiences, and we are currently in the process of revising a participatory design workshop to create accessible visualizations for and with this population. For the remaining dissertation work, I hope to further expand our knowledge of cognitively accessible visualization, translating what I have learned from these experiences into a graphical user interface that supports people with IDD with their self-advocacy and self-expression using personally relevant data. My ultimate career goal is to theorize cognitively accessible visualization and empower people with IDD to make informed decisions and generate meaningful discoveries through accessible visual analytics.

Clement Zheng (PhD alumnus, ATLAS ACME Lab), , , Laura Devendorf (ATLAS Unstable Design Lab Director, Information Science faculty member), ,

Glazed ceramic is a versatile material that we use every day. In this paper, we present a new approach that instruments existing glazed ceramic ware with interactive electronic circuits. We informed this work by collaborating with a ceramics designer and connected his craft practice to our experience in physical computing. From this partnership, we developed a systematic approach that begins with the subtractive fabrication of traces on glazed ceramic surfaces via the resist-blasting technique, followed by applying conductive ink into the inlaid traces. We capture and detail this approach through an annotated flowchart for others to refer to, as well as externalize the material insights we uncovered through ceramic and circuit swatches. We then demonstrate a range of interactive home applications built with this approach. Finally, we reflect on the process we took and discuss the importance of collaborating with craftspeople for material-driven research within HCI.

Ran Zhou (ATLAS THING Lab member, PhD student), Zachary Schwemler (ATLAS MS alumnus), , , Casey Lee Hunt (ATLAS THING Lab member, PhD student), Daniel Leithinger (ATLAS THING Lab Director, Computer Science faculty member)

Emerging research has demonstrated the viability of emotional communication through haptic technology inspired by interpersonal touch. However, the meaning-making of artificial touch remains ambiguous and contextual. We see this ambiguity caused by robotic touch’s "otherness" as an opportunity for exploring alternatives. To empower emotional haptic design in longitudinal out-of-lab exploration, we devise TactorBots, a design toolkit consisting of eight wearable hardware modules for rendering robotic touch gestures controlled by a web-based software application. We deployed TactorBots to thirteen designers and researchers to validate its functionality, characterize its design experience, and analyze what, how, and why alternative perceptions, practices, contexts, and metaphors would emerge in the experiment. We provide suggestions for designing future toolkits and field studies based on our experiences. Reflecting on the findings, we derive design implications for further enhancing the ambiguity and shifting the mindsets to expand the design space.

Note: This team will also lead an Interactivity session:

Workshops

ATLAS will also be represented at the Electrofab 2023 workshop during CHI. This year’s theme is “Beyond Prototyping Boards: Future Paradigms for Electronics Toolkits,” and will feature two papers authored by ATLAS members.

Ruhan Yang (ATLAS ACME Lab member, PhD student), Krithik Ranjan (ATLAS ACME Lab member, PhD student), Ellen Yi-Luen Do (ATLAS ACME Lab Director, Computer Science faculty member)

This paper introduces a new method of paper circuit fabrication that overcomes design barriers and increases flexibility in circuit design. Conventional circuit boards rely on thin traces, which limits the complexity and accuracy when applied to paper circuits. To address this issue, we propose a method that uses large conductive zones in paper circuits and performs subtractive processing during their fabrication. This approach eliminates design barriers and allows for more flexibility in circuit design. We introduce PaperCAD, a software tool that simplifies the design process by converting traditional circuit design to paper circuit design. We demonstrate our technique by creating two paper circuit boards. Our approach has the potential to promote the development of new applications for paper circuits.

Clement Zheng (PhD alumnus, ATLAS ACME Lab member), Peter Gyory (ATLAS ACME Lab member, PhD Candidate), Ellen Yi-Luen Do (ATLAS ACME Lab Director and Computer Science faculty member)

The electronics-centered approach to physical computing presents challenges when designers build tangible interactive systems due to its inherent emphasis on circuitry and electronic components. To explore an alternative physical computing approach we have developed a computer vision (CV) based system that uses a webcam, computer, and printed fiducial markers to create functional tangible interfaces. Over the last three years, we ran a series of studios with design participants to investigate how CV markers can participate in physical computing and the construction of physical interactive systems. We observed that CV markers offer versatile materiality for tangible interactions, afford the use of democratic materials for interface construction, and engage designers in embodied debugging with their own vision as a proxy for CV. Taking these insights, we are developing a visual editor that enables designers to easily program marker behavior and connect it to keyboard events. We believe that such a platform will enable designers to develop physical and digital interfaces concurrently while minimizing the complexity of integrating both sides. In addition, this platform can also facilitate the construction of many alternative interfaces for existing software that cater to different people. We discuss our motivation, progress, and future work of this research here.

Two ATLAS community members also co-organized a workshop in the Extended Abstracts portion of CHI 2023.

, , , , Fiona Bell (PhD Candidate), Netta Ofer (ATLAS Living Matter Lab member, PhD student), , , , , ,

As knowledge around bio-digital interaction continues to unfold, there are new opportunities for HCI researchers to integrate biology as a design and computational material. Our motivation for the workshop is to bring together interdisciplinary researchers with interest in exploring the next generation of biological HCI and exploring novel bio-digital interfaces implicating diverse contexts, scales, and stakeholders. The workshop aims to provide a space for interactive discussions, presentations, and brainstorming regarding opportunities and approaches for HCI around bio-digital interfaces. We invite researchers from both academia and industry to submit a short position paper in the following areas: Synthetic Biology, Biological Circuits, Do-It-Yourself Biology (DIYBio), Biomimetic Interfaces, Living Interfaces, Living Artefacts, and Bio-ethics. We will evaluate submissions on fit, ability to stimulate discussion, and contribution to HCI. On our website we have included examples of past work in this area to help inspire and inform position papers. Our website will host a recording of the entire workshop session with accepted papers to support asynchronous viewing for participants who are unable to attend in-person or synchronously.

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ATLAS PhD Student Ruhan Yang passed her preliminary exam on August 4. Her work on her dissertation, "Paper Robot Building Kits: Present and Future," is overseen by Professor Ellen Do,  Professor Mark Gross and Assistant Professor Daniel Leithinger. 

Yang is a PhD student in Creative Technology and Design, advised by Ellen Do, director of the ACME Lab. Yang's research focuses on paper interaction and toy design. She enjoys crafting and wants to share the pleasure of it with more people. 

Yang has been working on designing educational toys and tools for many years, and she is the co-founder of , an award-winning startup education technology company. She hopes to bring opportunities to more children through her designs.

Yang earned a Master of Science in Creative Technology and Design and a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering, both from ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder.

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