TexelBlocks: Dynamic Surfaces for Physical Interactions

Vivian Hsinyueh Chan, Yu-Chen Chan, Pin-Hsuan Peng, Lung-Pan Cheng

Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2021

@inproceedings{chan_texelblocks_2021,
 title = {TexelBlocks: Dynamic Surfaces for Physical Interactions},
 author = {Chan, Vivian Hsinyueh and Chan, Yu-Chen and Peng, Pin-Hsuan and Cheng, Lung-Pan},
 booktitle = {Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
 pages = {1--5},
 doi = {10.1145/3411763.3451653},
 year = {2021}
}

Abstract

We present TexelBlocks, modular blocks that dynamically change their surfaces to support rich physical interactions. The core component of each block is a motorized crawler belt with a set of material patches attached to it, allowing each of the TexelBlocks to change their surface independently and be concatenated into flat surfaces of various sizes. We implemented a working system that controls 24 TexelBlocks to form 6 × 4 dynamic surfaces. With the working prototype, we developed five applications such as context-aware surface adaptation, real-time tactile feedback, immersive storytelling with dynamic background, real-time embodied platform game, and a surface-changing board game to demonstrate rich physical interactions of dynamic surfaces.

haptic feedbackphysical displaytangible interactiontextures