Kinetic Blocks: Actuated Constructive Assembly for Interaction and Display

Pin-based shape displays not only give physical form to digital information, they have the inherent ability to accurately move and manipulate objects placed on top of them. In this paper we focus on such object manipulation: we present ideas and techniques that use the underlying shape change to giv...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Schoessler, Philipp, Windham, Daniel E., Leithinger, Daniel, Follmer, Sean Weston, Ishii, Hiroshi
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) 2016
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/103765
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3407-8722
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4918-8908
Description
Summary:Pin-based shape displays not only give physical form to digital information, they have the inherent ability to accurately move and manipulate objects placed on top of them. In this paper we focus on such object manipulation: we present ideas and techniques that use the underlying shape change to give kinetic ability to otherwise inanimate objects. First, we describe the shape display's ability to assemble, disassemble, and reassemble structures from simple passive building blocks through stacking, scaffolding, and catapulting. A technical evaluation demonstrates the reliability of the presented techniques. Second, we introduce special kinematic blocks that are actuated and sensed through the underlying pins. These blocks translate vertical pin movements into other degrees of freedom like rotation or horizontal movement. This interplay of the shape display with objects on its surface allows us to render otherwise inaccessible forms, like overhangs, and enables richer input and output.