arXiv subjects

Yasuaki Kakehi

Publications and source records attributed to Yasuaki Kakehi.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Sensus Pond: Exploring Water as Sensing Medium for More-than-Human Observation

We introduce Sensus Pond, an interactive system that reconfigures water not merely as a static natural element but as an active sensing medium for registering more-than-human traces. In response to the limitations of anthropocentric approaches in interaction design, we propose a methodological framework of observation without translation, resisting the tendency to stabilize, decode, or humanize nonhuman presence. Drawing from critical theories of more-than-human design and ecological entanglement, Sensus Pond is a materially embedded and site-specific system that employs Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing and an Artificial Neural Network to detect ephemeral interactions between the pond's surface and surrounding life forms. Rather than classifying or interpreting these events, the system visualizes temporal accumulations of overlapping traces, producing a layered archive of spatial and temporal entanglements. This approach emphasizes attunement over control, shifting the designer's role from interpreter to facilitator of open-ended, multispecies encounters. Sensus Pond invites reflection not only on what is sensed, but on how design itself can remain responsive to ambiguity, contingency, and the aesthetics of shared ecological life.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2022

Sketched Reality: Sketching Bi-Directional Interactions Between Virtual and Physical Worlds with AR and Actuated Tangible UI

This paper introduces Sketched Reality, an approach that combines AR sketching and actuated tangible user interfaces (TUI) for bidirectional sketching interaction. Bi-directional sketching enables virtual sketches and physical objects to "affect" each other through physical actuation and digital computation. In the existing AR sketching, the relationship between virtual and physical worlds is only one-directional -- while physical interaction can affect virtual sketches, virtual sketches have no return effect on the physical objects or environment. In contrast, bi-directional sketching interaction allows the seamless coupling between sketches and actuated TUIs. In this paper, we employ tabletop-size small robots (Sony Toio) and an iPad-based AR sketching tool to demonstrate the concept. In our system, virtual sketches drawn and simulated on an iPad (e.g., lines, walls, pendulums, and springs) can move, actuate, collide, and constrain physical Toio robots, as if virtual sketches and the physical objects exist in the same space through seamless coupling between AR and robot motion. This paper contributes a set of novel interactions and a design space of bi-directional AR sketching. We demonstrate a series of potential applications, such as tangible physics education, explorable mechanism, tangible gaming for children, and in-situ robot programming via sketching.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2020

LiftTiles: Constructive Building Blocks for Prototyping Room-scale Shape-changing Interfaces

Large-scale shape-changing interfaces have great potential, but creating such systems requires substantial time, cost, space, and efforts, which hinders the research community to explore interactions beyond the scale of human hands. We introduce modular inflatable actuators as building blocks for prototyping room-scale shape-changing interfaces. Each actuator can change its height from 15cm to 150cm, actuated and controlled by air pressure. Each unit is low-cost (8 USD), lightweight (10 kg), compact (15 cm), and robust, making it well-suited for prototyping room-scale shape transformations. Moreover, our modular and reconfigurable design allows researchers and designers to quickly construct different geometries and to explore various applications. This paper contributes to the design and implementation of highly extendable inflatable actuators, and demonstrates a range of scenarios that can leverage this modular building block.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2019

ShapeBots: Shape-changing Swarm Robots

We introduce shape-changing swarm robots. A swarm of self-transformable robots can both individually and collectively change their configuration to display information, actuate objects, act as tangible controllers, visualize data, and provide physical affordances. ShapeBots is a concept prototype of shape-changing swarm robots. Each robot can change its shape by leveraging small linear actuators that are thin (2.5 cm) and highly extendable (up to 20cm) in both horizontal and vertical directions. The modular design of each actuator enables various shapes and geometries of self-transformation. We illustrate potential application scenarios and discuss how this type of interface opens up possibilities for the future of ubiquitous and distributed shape-changing interfaces.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2017

Organic Primitives: Synthesis and Design of pH-Reactive Materials using Molecular I/O for Sensing, Actuation, and Interaction

In this paper we present Organic Primitives, an enabling toolbox that expands upon the library of input-output devices in HCI and facilitates the design of interactions with organic, fluid-based systems. We formulated color, odor and shape changing material primitives which act as sensor-actuators that convert pH signals into human-readable outputs. Food-grade organic molecules anthocyanin, vanillin, and chitosan were employed as dopants to synthesize materials which output a spectrum of colors, degrees of shape deformation, and switch between odorous and non-odorous states. We evaluated the individual output properties of our sensor-actuators to assess the rate, range, and reversibility of the changes as a function of pH 2-10. We present a design space with techniques for enhancing the functionality of the material primitives, and offer passive and computational methods for controlling the material interfaces. Finally, we explore applications enabled by Organic Primitives under four contexts: environmental, cosmetic, edible, and interspecies.

cs.HC↗