Making Material You

DODU is an AR-based multimodal interactive literacy teaching aid for Chinese children aged 3-7 with dyslexia, which calls children's senses such as sight, hearing, touch and movement through Augmented Reality and multimodal interaction, so as to achieve effective and interesting literacy training effects.

DOLL-SITTER is a toy set of pop-up smart books and application for sex education for children aged 5-8, using dolls which play the role of body organs and children played as their protectors. Through the interaction of dolls and smart pop-up books, children can learn about sex education, establish life scenes, and discuss with their parents the sex education issues in the “difficult to speak” life. Parents use APP and cards for parent-child interaction, complete the task of protecting the doll together, talk about sensitive topics, and answer children’s doubts about the body through the elf. It aims to cultivate long-term Comprehensive Sexuality Education, stimulate children’s curiosity about sexual knowledge, and weaken the embarrassment of traditional parents in front of sexual knowledge.

Indonesian state-owned bank, Bank BRI, is one of the biggest banks in Indonesia that are specializes on micro segment. As a way to help adult population in Indonesia who are still unbanked or underbanked, Bank BRI wants to find a way to help the customers do savings that are more convenient for them. Many of them still rely on cash for daily transactions. They keep their money at home, in a piggy bank, or join informal neighborhood saving program. This way of saving money is prone to thief and cheat. The customers themselves often get itchy to open their piggy bank and use the money.

For centuries people around the Swedish lake Storsjön have talked about a mysterious lake monster called Storsjöodjuret. Since the 19th century hundreds of observations have been documented and there are even more unofficial testimonies. For a few years the monster was even on the Swedish list of protected species. There have been many attempts to catch or convincingly photograph the animal, but none of them have succeeded.

This is a project that explores the realm of programming and art education for young children, trying to bring these two disciplines together in a fun and playful way. The aim is to allow children to express themselves creatively and at the same time explore and understand basic concepts of coding and programming. From the idea of creating a tool for education, this project has evolved, throughout the iterative design process of prototyping and testing, into a toolbox for personal exploration and discovery of Art and technology.

Living in developed countries with superior infrastructures and seemingly unlimited access to the ubiquitous things, we tend to forget: resources are not infinite and need to be taken care of. Current smart home solutions for regulating and optimizing consumption give little to no information to the user on their behavior and routine. Although every device in our home is a data touchpoint, hardly any of this is reflected in our living space, where we most need it.

‍We designed and prototyped a pair of hardware-integrated cabinets: one cabinet to scan in objects people submit and one cabinet to display that scanned object through holographic projection.

HOAS Pasila, located in Central Helsinki, provides a home for 250 foreign students. The residents are mostly European exchange students who come to study at one of the higher education institutions surrounding Helsinki. For many of them, the building is their first home as well as their first taste of Finland. The building is a 1970’s architectural gem, which was falling into disrepair. The lack of feeling of ownership led to some problems - like misuse of the building and its facilities. Our challenge was to make this building feel like home. With a little colorful chalkboard paint and some bold typography, we made the interiors part of the architecture and a vibrant space for living. We painted the hallways from floor to ceiling, turning them into chalkboards, instead of forbidding writing on the walls, we began promoting it. As a result, the building became an interactive participant in the student community: “talking” to its residents, encouraging them to get to know each other and do things together, creating a unique environment they could call their own.

Powerchair football is soccer for people in motorized wheelchairs.The Argentine team trains only once a month due to costly and difficult logistics. Training requires a large space with a smooth floor, and the athletes have to bring their sport chair as well as their everyday chair.We created VR Power Trainer, a virtual reality platform that empowers players to train anywhere.Using human-centered design and input from the players, we built a virtual gymnasium where they can practice anytime.

For nearly 70 years, we have been interacting with computers using a keyboard, and for the past few decades with a mouse. With the rise of touchscreen technology and the Internet of Things, we’re long overdue for a more intuitive way to create and work with technology.