Opening Keynote - Dana Kulić

Friday, March 2
3:00-4:00pm
Luddy Hall 1106

Title: Designing Engaging Interactions through Movement: Experiments with Near Living Architecture

Abstract: Can architectural environments provide an engaging and emphathetic interaction with occupants? In this talk, we describe our work designing movement based interaction strategies for the Hylozoic Series architectural environments. We propose an approach for adapting the Intelligent Adaptive Curiosity learning algorithm previously introduced in the developmental robotic literature to distributed interactive sculptural systems. This Curiosity-Based Learning Algorithm (CBLA) allows the system to learn about its own mechanisms and its surrounding environment s through self-experimentation and interaction. A novel formulation using multiple agents as learning subsets of the system that communicate through shared input variables enables us to scale the learning algorithm to a much larger system with diverse types of sensors and actuators. Experiments on a prototype interactive sculpture installation demonstrate the exploratory patterns of CBLA and the collective learning behaviours through the integration of multiple learning agents.

Bio: Dana Kulić received the combined B.A.Sc. and M.Eng. degrees in electromechanical engineering, and the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of British Columbia, Canada, in 1998 and 2005, respectively. From 2006 to 2009, she was a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow and a Project Assistant Professor at the Nakamura Laboratory at the University of Tokyo. She is currently an Associate Professor at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Waterloo, Canada. She is an Associate Editor with the IEEE Transactions on Robotics and the ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction. In 2014, she was awarded Ontario’s Early Researcher award for her work on rehabilitation and human-robot interaction. Her research interests include human motion analysis, robot learning, humanoid robots, and human-machine interaction.

Nexus

Friday, March 2
5:30-7:00pm
Luddy Hall, 4th floor
RSVP requested
Join us at the nexus of fashion and technology for an event that celebrates the work of Fashion Technology Symposium participants. From wearable art to cyberart and from robotics to new materials, see how innovative technologies come together at an event that is equal parts art exhibit, fashion show, and tech demonstration. Light refreshments will be served.

Closing Keynote - Yvonne Rogers

Saturday, March 3
2:30-3:30pm

Title: Can Technology be Fashioned?

Abstract: The availability and affordability of mobile, wearable, tangible, physical, augmented reality and IoT technologies has made it possible for us to dream; conjuring up all manner of new designs, experiences, and augmentations. Designers, developers, school children, researchers and the general public now have an ever-increasing toolkit of possibilities at their fingertips by which to make, create and envelop bodies. But how do they choose what to do and which components to combine? Can technology be fashioned and fashion be technologized to make truly remarkable experiences but which are also grounded in utility and usefulness?

Bio: Yvonne Rogers is the director of UCLIC, an interdisciplinary centre that straddles the psychology and computer science departments at University College London. Her research interests lie at the intersection of human-computer interaction, behavioral change and physical computing. Much of her work is situated in the wild - concerned with informing, building and evaluating novel user experiences through creating and assembling a diversity of technologies (e.g. tangibles, internet of things) that augment everyday, learning, community engagement and collaborative work activities. She has been instrumental in promulgating new theories (e.g., external cognition), alternative methodologies (e.g., in the wild studies) and far-reaching research agendas (e.g., “Being Human: HCI in 2020” manifesto). She is a co-author of the definitive textbook on Interaction Design, now published in its 4th edition. Over 200,000 copies have been sold worldwide and the book has been translated into 6 languages. She has also published over 300 articles, including two monographs “HCI Theory: Classical, Modern and Contemporary” and "Research in the Wild". She was recently elected as a fellow of the ACM.