About the conference

TEI 2014 is the eighth international conference dedicated to presenting the latest results in tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction. It will be held 16th to 19th February 2014 at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU), Munich, Germany.

The work presented at TEI addresses HCI issues, design, interactive art, user experience, tools and technologies, with a strong focus on how computing can bridge atoms and bits into cohesive interactive systems. The intimate size of this single-track conference provides a unique forum for exchanging ideas and presenting innovative work through talks, interactive exhibits, demos, hands-on studios, posters, art installations and performances.

meSch at TEI 2014

Accepted papers

At TEI 2014,  a paper ‘Prototyping Tangibles: Exploring Form and Interaction’ by Daniela Petrelli, Nick Dulake, Mark Marshall, Robert Goldberg, Matt Willox and Fabio Caparrelli will be presented.

Next to these, several Work in Progress papers have been accepted:

• Dingler, Tilman, Stefan Schneegass, and Benjamin Steeb. “Physical Affordances of Check-in Stations for Museum Exhibits”.
• Hornecker, Eva, Michaela Honauer, and Luigina Ciolfi. “Technology Augmentation of Historic Cemeteries – A Cross-Site Comparison”.
• Kubitza, Thomas and Albrecht Schmidt. “First Set: Physical Components for the Creation of Interactive Exhibits”.
• Lischke, Lars, Stefan Schneegass, and Tilman Dingler. “User Defined Exhibitions – Exploring Possibilities to Involve Visitors in the Design of Museum Exhibitions”.
• Schneegass, Stefan, Johannes Knittel, Benjamin Rau, and Yomna Abdelrahman. “Exploring Exhibits: Interactive Methods for Enriching Cultural Heritage Items”.

Studios 

Furthermore, two studios in the context of the meSch project will be organised on February 16th. Studios offer hand-on experiences for conference attendees that merge design, art, and technology. Studios accommodate around 15 participants each.

Title: ‘Tools and methods for Creating Interactive Artifacts’

Organisers: Thomas Kubitza, Norman Pohl, Tilman Dingler, Albrecht Schmidt, Daniela Petrelli, and Nick Dulake

Many embedded platforms that support the creation of interactive smart objects have become available over the last years. Arduino, Raspberry Pi, electric imp, mbed,MSP430, and .NET Gadgeteer are examples of hardware platforms with very different properties and capabilities. In order to make interactive artifacts additional sensors, actuators, and networking elements are available for the different platforms. Additionally there are different software environments and development tools that support developers in creating custom applications for embedded systems. It is apparent that one size does not fit all [1] and that choosing the right platform and tools is an important step towards an effective solution.

In this TEI2014 studio we first provide an overview of available platforms and tools that allow developers to create novel and tangible interactive systems. We will present and discuss developing environments, with a specific focus on browser based programming tools and social coding. In a second step we will have 2 hands-on sessions, where in each we use a different platform and create an initial functional prototype. The aim is to provide the participants with an overview of existing embedded development tools suitable for creating interactive artifacts and to provide some hands on-experience with different new platforms.

More information: http://teistudio14.hcilab.org/.

Title: Prototyping Device Ecologies: Physical to Digital and Vice Versa

Organisers: Andrea Bellucci, Ingnacio Aedo, Paloma Diaz, Alessio Malizia

This Studio will involve participants creating interactions with physical and digital elements. They will have the opportunity to use a toolkit we developed that combines physical and digital widgets into a unique environment to allow the rapid setup of device ecologies. Therefore, participants will be able to explore how the toolkit support to physical/digital interaction gives people with low, when no, technical skills the possibility to rapidly prototype interactions among heterogeneous devices, thus blurring the boundaries between the physical and the digital world. The Studio is structured in two parts: in the first one, participants will get familiar with the toolkit hardware and software functionalities. In the second part they will experiment directly the toolkit capabilities by developing interactions among digitally-augmented objects in a cultural heritage context. We expect, in this Studio, people to learn what are the possibilities and challenges in the development of device ecologies.

More information: http://www.tei-conf.org/14/studios.php#s7

Conference website

For more information about the conference and registration, visit the conference website at the http://www.tei-conf.org/14/.