CAREER: Material Computing for Everyone: Democratizing Creative Computing via Unexpected Materials and Cultures

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

The PI's goal in this project is to answer the question: Can we engage new groups of people in engineering by situating technology in new material and cultural contexts? To this end, she will spark and study diverse engineering communities by developing tools that enable people to work creatively with computation in new material and cultural contexts. The PI's prior work provides strong support for her hypothesis that tools that include unorthodox combinations of materials can be uniquely appealing to diverse audiences. Materials like textiles, paper, and paint have powerful cultural associations that can balance the negative stereotypes often associated with technology. In this research the PI will explore these ideas by integrating new and traditional materials, bringing together computation, electronics, textiles and paper. Tools that open up new creative areas for mass experimentation and collaboration are tremendously important both for the future of computing and the future of society at large. Equally important are tools that bridge the digital and physical worlds, and tools and activities that diversify computing. This project is situated at a powerful intersection. The PI will design and test toolkits and curricula that blend computing with paper and fabric, and thus enable diverse groups of people to build hybrid digital-physical systems. And she will conduct longitudinal studies of the real-world creative communities that develop around these tools. This work will contribute to the study of creativity support tools, ubiquitous computing, educational technology, and creative communities. Broader Impacts: The PI expects project outcomes to broaden participation in computing, by providing new communities (including groups of women, economically disadvantaged urban youth, and senior citizens) with compelling incentives to engage in computer science and other STEM disciplines. The tools developed in this work will expand the culture of computing by providing examples of technology that looks and feels very different from the technology we're accustomed to. The PI will make her tools available both to educators and the general public in order to ensure that the research has long-term, real-world impact.