PneUI
An elastic pneumatic interface
takes its cues from living things.

Specs Materials: silicone rubber, paper, spandex, acrylic sheets

Tools: air compressor, vacuum, laser cutter, 3D printer

→ Lining Yao is fabricating the PneUI lamp, a shape-changing object that can morph from a single strip into an energy-saving bulb shape.

→ The PneUI lamp.

Describe what you made.

Our project is called PneUI. It includes a series of pneumatic (inflatable) artifacts and interfaces.

They are transformable and
responsive objects, such
as a lamp that can wrap its
own body when pulled, a
transformable iPad cover
that inflates bubbles when
players of racing games need
to turn left or right, and a
cellphone that turns into a
wrist band. Technically, we
envision a future material
with an embedded grammar
that can sense and transform,
either through geometrical or
structural computation.

Briefly describe the process
of how this was made. We
see the fabrication process as
not only a labor procedure,
but also a process to
embed computation inside
materials. Soft lithography
has been used by soft
roboticists, biologists, and
other scientists to fabricate
elastomers with micro-
scale air channels. We
have adapted this process,
enlarged the scale, and
combined it with traditional
molding and casting
methods to fabricate our
pneumatic artifacts.

What for you is the most
interesting thing about
what you made? We
started with making new
actuators, but it turned out
that we wanted to create
the feeling of artificial life.
We think the elastomeric
pneumatic actuators go far
beyond generating bending
curvature. The unique
physicality of translucent
silicone rubber and the
natural transformability of
inflatable structures convey
a type of motion and form
factor that resembles or
reminds us of life.

What was the biggest

INTERACTIONS.ACM.ORG 14 INTERACTIONS JULY–AUGUST2014 HOW WAS I T MADE?