Research Project
SomaFlatables: Supporting Embodied Cognition through Pneumatic Bladders
Wearable inflatable devices that physically push or extend parts of your body, for example, nudging your posture or expanding your perceived shape, to create new kinds of bodily experiences. The project explores how inflatables, rather than screens, could be a medium for interactive experiences.
Abstract
Applying the theory of Embodied Cognition through design allows us to create computational interactions that engage our bodies by modifying our body schema. However, in HCI, most of these interactive experiences have been stationed around creating sensing-based systems that leverage our body’s position and movement to offer an experience, such as games using Nintendo Wii and Xbox Kinect. In this work, we created two pneumatic inflatables-based prototypes that actuate our body to support embodied cognition in two scenarios by altering the user’s body schema. We call these ”SomaFlatables” and demonstrate the design and implementation of these inflatables based prototypes that can move and even extend our bodies, allowing for novel bodily experiences. Furthermore, we discuss the future work and limitations of the current implementation.
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