For my summary I chose the paper Constraint-Driven Robotic Surfaces, At Human-Scale. As far as I can tell the paper is mostly an elevator pitch and prototype for Robotic Surfaces. Robotic surfaces in this context basically imagine the the floor and walls are full of motors and so can on command reshape themselves to form various surfaces from chairs, to tables, to coat racks etc. Much of the early paper is dedicated to demonstrating various functions achievable through robotic surfaces documented with a functional prototype.
The rest of the paper focuses on the unique challenges facing designing dynamically shapeable surfaces. The chief concerns were around basic structural issues like weight capacity and power efficiency. Chiefly there is an obvious solution to making dynamic shapeable surfaces and that’s just creating long strips of hinges with high powered motors on them that can move and hold heavy objects like people and groceries. The problem there is that such a design would have multiple very energy hungry motors running constantly to hold their shape. The solution demonstrated by the prototype subverts this by only having two motors one on each end of a motorized panel, these motors compress the shape of the strip and low energy clamps along each strip restrict which way in which the surface can bend allowing for specific shapes to take place. Once this has happened the position of the panel is locked into place so it doesn’t have to consistently expend power to hold shape.
Having also seen his colloquium I’m extremely charmed by this overarching themes of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Much of his talk and the paper I read focus on this almost scifi futurism, looking at ways to use computers to augment physical structures and amenities. Whether it being in the paper having your building create furniture as needed or displays directly interact with props. A component I also appreciate is the focus of feasibility. The Robotic surfaces paper dedicates a reasonable portion of it’s length to talking about cost effectiveness in producing these surfaces and during the talk he demonstrated how remarkably affordable small scale antenna and motion trackers are. Overall I found Scott Hudson’s work an inspiring look ways computers can augment our every day life.