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“I am feeling blue… and red”: Exploring alternative ways of feeling colours through a wearable haptic artefact
Get PDFWearable haptic artefacts are more and more present in our everyday life. They increasingly mediate our perception, transforming the ways in which we interact with ourselves, the environment and others. Wearable haptic artefacts can sense the body and its surroundings, impacting our subjectivity by shaping perceptions, actions, and behaviours. Such ability to influence our senses is helpful in creating engaging multisensory experiences. In my work, I explore the technological mediation between the human body and its surroundings by facilitating new relationships among the senses. This article presents a wearable haptic artefact in the shape of a glove called “I am feeling blue… and red”, which was designed to enable users to experience colour through touch. The goal is to suggest a mode of colour experience and break preconceptions one might have towards the relationship there is between touch and colours. Through an autoethnographic account, the article reflects on the artefact’s design process and user interaction. It proposes strategies for developing unique multisensory experiences using wearable haptic artefacts. These strategies can assist artists and designers who want to create captivating interactions by connecting the senses of sight and touch
Platform agnostic electrochemical sensing app and companion potentiostat
Get PDFElectrochemical sensing is ubiquitous in a number of fields ranging from biosensing, to environmental monitoring through to food safety and battery or corrosion characterisation. Whereas conventional potentiostats are ideal to develop assays in laboratory settings, they are in general, not well-suited for field work due to their size and power requirements. To address this need, a number of portable battery-operated potentiostats have been proposed over the years. However, most open source solutions do not take full advantage of integrated circuit (IC) potentiostats, a rapidly evolving field. This is partly due to the constraining requirements inherent to the development of dedicated interfaces, such as apps, to address and control a set of common electrochemical sensing parameters. Here we propose the PocketEC, a universal app that has all the functionalities to interface with potentiostat ICs through a user defined property file. The versatility of PocketEC, developed with an assay developer mindset, was demonstrated by interfacing it, via Bluetooth, to the ADuCM355 evaluation board, the open-source DStat potentiostat and the Voyager board, a custom-built, small footprint potentiostat based around the LMP91000 chip. The Voyager board is presented here for the first time. Data obtained using a standard redox probe, Ferrocene Carboxylic Acid (FCA) and a silver ion assay using anodic stripping multi-step amperometry were in good agreement with analogous measurements using a bench top potentiostat. Combined with its Voyager board companion, the PocketEC app can be used directly for a number of wearable or portable electrochemical sensing applications. Importantly, the versatility of the app makes it a candidate of choice for the development of future portable potentiostats. Finally, the app is available to download on the Google Play store and the source codes and design files for the PocketEC app and the Voyager board are shared via Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC 3.0) to promote the development of novel portable or wearable applications based on electrochemical sensing
Mechanical characterisation of 3D printed lightweight lattice structures with varying internal design alterations
Get PDFThe recent advances in the additive manufacturing (AM) have enhanced the development of light-weight, energy-absorbing structures in many aspects with precise, designed configurations of the internal structure. Given the range of potential materials many possible variations exist compared to the existing polymer-based foams. The advantages of rapid prototyping, enabled through AM, allows a streamlined process in obtaining a structure of desired mechanical behaviour. In this work, development, and design variation of a flexible lattice structure with core strut modification is demonstrated. The core struts are varied in terms of shape and density and are fabricated using vat photopolymerisation with Formlabs Flexible 80A resin and experimental methodology is outlined for the characterisation of the printed specimen under compressive loading. Mechanical characterisation under three different compression rates presents that the implementation of the core strut increases the elastic modulus of the lattice structure. The enhanced stiffness effects are further increased with the variations in shape, while the evaluation of the density variations shows significantly different deformation behaviour and strain rate sensitivity. The behaviour of each specimen types is discussed further in terms of their functional viability and potential applications where the design specific behaviour and small, lightweight form factor can be most effectively utilised
3D printed superparamagnetic stimuli-responsive starfish-shaped hydrogels
Get PDFMagnetic-stimuli responsive hydrogels are quickly becoming a promising class of materials across numerous fields, including biomedical devices, soft robotic actuators, and wearable electronics. Hydrogels are commonly fabricated by conventional methods that limit the potential for complex architectures normally required for rapidly changing custom configurations. Rapid prototyping using 3D printing provides a solution for this. Previous work has shown successful extrusion 3D printing of magnetic hydrogels; however, extrusion-based printing is limited by nozzle resolution and ink viscosity. VAT photopolymerization offers a higher control over resolution and build-architecture. Liquid photo-resins with magnetic nanocomposites normally suffer from nanoparticle agglomeration due to local magnetic fields. In this work, we develop an optimised method for homogenously infusing up to 2 wt % superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) with a 10 nm diameter into a photo-resin composed of water, acrylamide and PEGDA, with improved nanoparticle homogeneity and reduced agglomeration during printing. The 3D printed starfish hydrogels exhibited high mechanical stability and robust mechanical properties with a maximum Youngs modulus of 1.8 MPa and limited shape deformation of 10% when swollen. Each individual arm of the starfish could be magnetically actuated when a remote magnetic field is applied. The starfish could grab onto a magnet with all arms when a central magnetic field was applied. Ultimately, these hydrogels retained their shape post-printing and returned to their original formation once the magnetic field had been removed. These hydrogels can be used across a wide range of applications, including soft robotics and magnetically stimulated actuators
Nanocomposite hydrogels with polymer grafted silica nanoparticles, using glucose oxidase
Get PDFNanocomposite hydrogels offer remarkable potential for applications in bone tissue engineering. They are synthesized through the chemical or physical crosslinking of polymers and nanomaterials, allowing for the enhancement of their behaviour by modifying the properties and compositions of the nanomaterials involved. However, their mechanical properties require further enhancement to meet the demands of bone tissue engineering. Here, we present an approach to improve the mechanical properties of nanocomposite hydrogels by incorporating polymer grafted silica nanoparticles into a double network inspired hydrogel (gSNP Gels). The gSNP Gels were synthesised via a graft polymerization process using a redox initiator. gSNP Gels were formed by grafting 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropanesulfonic acid (AMPS) as the first network gel followed by a sequential second network acrylamide (AAm) onto amine functionalized silica nanoparticles (ASNPs). We utilized glucose oxidase (GOx) to create an oxygen-free atmosphere during polymerization, resulting in higher polymer conversion compared to argon degassing. The gSNP Gels showed excellent compressive strengths of 13.9 ± 5.5 MPa, a strain of 69.6 ± 6.4%, and a water content of 63.4% ± 1.8. The synthesis technique demonstrates a promising approach to enhance the mechanical properties of hydrogels, which can have significant implications for bone tissue engineering and other soft tissue applications
Where the light gets in
No full textA Regenerative Design Field Kit, a tool designed to expand your perspective as you observe the world around you, reflect on the present, and contemplate potential futures. Using the Field Kit is as straightforward as following these three steps: Peer through the viewer at an object or scene Apply the questions to examine the present Use the question cards to imagine possible futures This kit empowers you and your team to scrutinize challenges in today's world more intensively, and imagine a wide variety of different paths to take. How do you design the healthiest environment, with the greatest economy, for all in society
I put a spell on you - New magic and mysticism
No full text“I Put a Spell on You explores today’s growing affinity with magic, which coincides with a time when we’re experiencing a profound loss of faith in modern society. Rationalism, science and the ‘progress’ of the modern era have left us lurching from one crisis to the next, while climate catastrophe calls into question our relationship with planet Earth. Against this backdrop, magic offers us an alternative universe – a space where we can become re-enchanted with the world again. The artists in this show embrace magic, myth and mysticism as they explore alternative ways of thinking and being. They are guided by the historic figure of the witch – always close at hand in Essex where hundreds stood accused.
...proliferating materialities... A Royal College of Art Material Engagements Research Cluster (MERC) exhibition
No full text…proliferating materialities… is an exhibition bringing together researchers from the royal college of art under the banner of the material engagement… in an exhibition which evidences various approaches to material (whatever this means) informed research… through artworks… text… and… moving image… the exhibition explores the various ways artists and researchers apply practice-led and theoretical approaches… artworks employ poetic… creative… tacit… and… embodied ways of expressing new forms of knowledge…considering the fluid traversal of knowledge between making… and… thinking
The ragpicker’s topology: Towards a photographic practice for surveying urban character
Get PDFThis PhD concerns the use of the term ‘character’ in relation to urban landscapes and how this can be captured through the lens of a camera, particularly in sites of renewal. ‘Character’ is a word that describes the way we discern and comprehend places. It appears frequently in landscape policy documents and is often applied broadly to refer to a diversity of issues for consideration in urban sites where change may take place. These include tangible, calculable matters such a topology, land use, pattern and grain, as well as less tangible features such as heritage, memories, associations and feelings. When places within cities are developed or renewed, they are often observed optically through a range of systematic surveying processes which largely address physical, constructed forms and the ways in which these relate to one another. High-resolution aerial photography is used to assist in this process and can provide sweeping views of urban landscapes in close detail. Conversely, the topographic photographers of the late nineteenth century famously regarded the metropolis as a series of cryptic topographies, which could be understood through the fragmentary perspectives of human beings at street level. In the early 1960s the Townscape pioneer Gordon Cullen developed these ideas by photographically collecting, categorising and analysing our experiences of walking through cities. Cullen created a ‘Casebook’ of tenets for consideration in urban design which, unlike the formal photographic mechanisms that we often apply in site research today, were more concerned with playful explorations into how we perceive cities through everyday incidents and encounters. This PhD formulates a framework for understanding, analysing and then applying these more personal, ethereal facets of the built environment in photographic site research processes. This is informed by a close reading of the work of lens-based investigators of the urban who have explored the notion of character within the built landscape in a range of ways. The practice-based research synthesises these methods through a photographic enquiry into three related sites of contemporary redevelopment: Mercado de Arroios in Lisbon, Mercado do Bolhão in Porto and Mercado dos Lavradores in Funchal. An extensive survey of these urban markets, involving numerous investigative ‘photo-walks’, took place over a period of three years. The resulting portfolio of images is intended to question how new lens-based methodologies can be used to collate, discuss and substantiate the characteristics of urban places undergoing renewal
The Passion Reading Room: Échelle Humaine festival
No full textThis installation plays on recurring visual motifs in Tai Shani's work. The huge dots become pillows, the architecture a carpet, and transform them into a three-dimensional interactive space. The image used in the installation comes from a series of watercolours entitled 'The Passion', based on the set architecture of Carl Dreyer's silent film "La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc"