Hello Everyone, my name is Luis Paredes, and I’m excited to present on behalf of my research team:
“ FabHandWear: An End-to-End Pipeline from Design to Fabrication
of Customized Functional Hand Wearables.”
Hands have evolved into a universal and versatile tool to manipulate and sense objects.
Within the HCI community, hands have been extensively used as a means of the user.
However, hand wearables are challenging to design and fabricate
because of the anatomical variability, multiple degrees of freedom,
and the absence of standard manufacturing techniques.
We can address these issues by creating a tool that effectively adapts designs,
size, geometry, and functions relative to the users' anatomy.
Creating hand wearables with multiple electronic components - is not an easy task
as previous systems have been:
Too specific to a single wearable design. Not scalable in terms of
functionalities and components, Designs only in 2 Dimensions, or
Generalized for all body parts, which makes it challenging to adapt for the hands.
We conducted a preliminary study with 10 participants to analyze and understand the
impact that fitting has on users and their experience while performing a simple task
such as typing on a virtual keyboard viewed on a head-mounted display.
From the study, we learned that the ratio between the hand and the wearable has a direct effect on:
1) The sensor location 2) The visual attention required for interactions
3) The attachment method of the wearable to the hand
4) and The need to adjust the location of the components
FabHandWear allows users from many knowledge levels and multidisciplinary backgrounds
to explore and prototype new hand interaction, sensing, and input modalities.
The web-based application allows users to input their
hand parameters to create wearables that just fit right on their hands.
Next - users attach a variety of components- based on their desired functionality
onto a 3D hand mesh.
The user can place these components at any desired location and orientation on the hand,
which allows them to control the shape of the substrate that will attach to their hand.
FabHandWear’s guided design workflow assists users
that are not familiar with electronics or wearable design in multiple ways.
A function-based component menu that allows users to find the suitable component quickly
Feedback prompts suggest to users the components that go
together to achieve complete functionality.
Automatic and manual routing with color-coded pins
that don’t require the user to go through long datasheets and complex wiring instructions
Finally- the system generates- a fabrication file-
in the form of a 2D circuit layout- that is ready to be printed.
The pattern is transferred to the substrate
fabric- by screen printing- using conductive silver ink.
This is followed by curing the ink in the oven- for 5 minutes at 65 deg C
Next- the user places the components- in their respective positions- using Z
conductive tape- and paints the terminals with silver ink- to ensure connectivity.
Lastly- the user cuts the fabric- along the substrate guides and
sticks it to their hand- using skin-friendly adhesive tape
We evaluated our tool with a user study and through example
applications- that explore the feasibility, applicability, and potential of creativity.
We built four models Inspired by real-world, health, aesthetics, and sci-fi applications.
We show customized hand wearables for cosplay,
health monitoring, and interactions with emerging technologies.
To evaluate the usability of our tool - we conducted a remote user study
with 13 participants,
where we asked them to design three models using FabHandWear.
We hypothesize that participants will be able to implement the tasks
using FabHandWear features simply and faster than manual procedures.
During the tasks, the participants had to size the parametric hand model, place components,
manually generate the circuit, and finish by generating a template.
The Results suggest that Fabhandwear successfully allow designers from different
backgrounds and levels of expertise to design and create hand wearables.
Participants were faster after each task
was completed, independent of the task complexity and the number of components.
The simplicity of the tool allowed users to focus on the functionality desired.
Increasing the trust in designers
with no engineering or technical backgrounds and allowing more exploration of applications.
For Future work, we want to investigate the impact on more inclusive parametrization features,
a multi-layer and multi-material manufacturing method,
and opening the tool for general distribution.
We believe that our research provides promising insights for
the design of 3D wearables personalization systems
that can enhance the development and prototyping of novel applications in new domains.
Thank you.