Interactions - March/April 2012

ers, biologists, and Roomba tinkerers. Any one of those people might happen to encounter your project and offer an interesting idea or even the solution to a problem that has had you stymied. This intermixing creates dialogue and exposes participants to designs and concepts from many different arenas. And with a selection of helpful people around, you have lots of folks willing to test out a new interface or product idea. So it’s exciting, but not terribly surprising, that the successful Makerbot Industries (which makes inexpensive, open source 3-D printers) got its start at the NYCResistor hackerspace.

Due to the large number of peo-
ple, high churn, and wide variety
of projects, hackerspaces are great
places to observe some of the rapid
developments currently occurring in
interaction design, in terms of both
software and hardware interac-
tion. Within these spaces, members
share best practices, software tool
kits, APIs, github projects, compo-
nents, and tools. Most hackerspaces
have a sharing ethos similar to that
of the open source movement—
NYCResistor’s motto is “we learn,
share, and make things.”
We do not view hackerspaces
as direct competition for tradi-
tional corporate or university
research labs. Both informal and
formal types of research spaces
are part of a growing ecosystem
of technological innovation. They
share members, and interest-
ing projects move between them.
Readers are vigorously encouraged
to look up a location near them
on hackerspaces.org and drop by
for a tour. Noisebridge and Foulab,
like many hackerspaces, host an
open house on Tuesday nights;
Hacker Dojo has regular “happy
hours” on Fridays. NYCResistor is
open on Thursday evenings and
typically hosts a couple events per
week that are open to the public.

as worthwhile as making several thousand. As this trend continues, we may encounter more and more general-public interest in the field of tangible interaction design.

Enabling a Tangible Turn

While much of the hype around open source projects and hackerspaces centers around individuals, grassroots communities, and small businesses, researchers can certainly benefit from getting involved in DIY communities. As our opening example suggests, the practices of DIY and open source hardware— and the tools they produce—are powerful enablers of exactly the kind of quick, iterative prototyping that is considered a best practice in interaction design.

Designers and researchers do not just benefit from the existence of cheap, usable open source hardware—we are contributing to these projects more and more. A number of popular open source projects have academic origins: Arduino, Fritzing, and TinyOS are just a few that have taken on a life of their own. The open source hardware community can be a great channel for bringing a research project to maturity in the wider world.

Moreover, these tools may be fueling a “tangible turn” for hobbyists and small businesses. The availability of rapid prototyping tools and free modeling software for hobbyists now enables sites like Thingiverse (see sidebar), where people share free and modifiable models that others can print at home. Conversely, businesses like Ponoko and Shapeways use their high-end prototyping equipment to allow makers to order small batches of made-to-order physical items, or even to sell their designs on their website. Unlike older forms of manufacturing, such as molding or vacuum forming, 3-D printing and laser cutting do not have high fixed costs; making one widget is about

1. The definition of “hacker” we employ here is akin to that of “maker,” with an additional connotation of reappropriating objects for other than their intended purpose. While the term can also connote someone who uses computer expertise to gain unauthorized access to data, this article does not refer to those practices. 2. Brewer, J., Williams, A., and Dourish, P. A handle on what’s going on: Combining tangible interfaces and ambient displays for collaborative groups. Proc. TEI’07 (Baton Rouge, LA). 2007. 3. Studios are six-hour workshops in which participants make tangible prototypes around specific topics of interest, e.g., game controllers, interactive books, wearables, etc. 4. The OSH definition can be read in full at http:// freedomdefined.org/OSH W 5. http://www.ohwr.org/projects/cernohl/wiki 6. Cern Bulletin. Open hardware for open science; http://cdsweb.cern.ch/ journal/CERNBulletin/2011/28/News% 20 Articles/1357331?ln=en 7. Kushner, D. The making of Arduino: How five friends engineered a small circuit board that’s taking the DIY world by storm. IEEE Spectrum. Oct. 2011; http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/hands-on/ the-making-of-arduino/0 8. http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2010/05/03/million- dollar-baby-businesses-designing-and-selling-open-source-hardware-making-millions/ 9. Weiler, L. and Ohlig, J. Building a hacker space: A hacker space design pattern catalogue. The 24th Chaos Communication Congress (Berlin, Germany). 2007; http://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/ events/ 2133.en.html

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Amanda Williams is a cofounder of Wyld Collective Ltd., an independent design/research consultancy based in Montreal. Her research focuses on tangible and mobile interaction design.

Alicia Gibb, formerly of Bug Labs, does independent research and development. She is a member of N YCResistor and a pioneer in the open source hardware movement, co-chairing the Open Hardware Summit.

Born a nerd, David Weekly, after
getting a CS degree, realized that
hackers could be social and has
since been working on getting
them together by starting compa-
nies, and nonprofits, and parties.
He is the founding director of
March + April 2012