woman wearing tank-top style shirt made from kombucha scobe with led lights embedded

Kombucha chic: How one student uses microbes, and time, to grow her own clothes

May 4, 2023

Biodesign researcher Fiona Bell says that anyone, anywhere can grow their own clothing right from their kitchens. You start by brewing a batch of kombucha.

chi 2023 logo

CHI 2023 features works by 19 ATLAS community members

April 25, 2023

We are happy to announce that 19 members of the ATLAS community contributed to work accepted for the 2023 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, taking place in Hamburg, Germany, April 23–28. Accepting fewer than 25 percent of submissions, CHI is the premier international conference on human-computer...

Carson Bruns

Bruns lands prestigious NSF CAREER research award to usher in next generation of “smart tattoos”

April 4, 2023

Assistant Professor Carson Bruns has received a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Award for research that investigates how the art of tattooing can incorporate the latest advances in nanotechnology to improve human health. The National Science Foundation CAREER Award recognizes exemplary faculty in the early stages of their career with...

grace leslie on right wearing eeg headband prepares for brain music performance

Can music heal? This artist and researcher wants to find out

Dec. 6, 2022

Electronic musician, flutist and researcher Grace Leslie believes that music touches something deep in the human brain—a hardwired need, perhaps, to sit around a fire or in a concert arena and feel connected to the people around us. Humans have been making music for longer than we’ve lived in cities and grown crops. “In most cultures, it’s used to draw people together,” says Leslie.

Robot staring straight ahead at  viewer

Interdisciplinary team receives $1.8 million for audacious robot-building project

Nov. 7, 2022

Robots help build cars, fly planes, fight wars and provide healthcare; they play a role in countless industries, but for the most part, they don't work in chemistry labs. A team of CU Boulder scientists plans to change that.

two cardboard tinycades side by side

How to turn throwaway cardboard into a DIY arcade game

July 22, 2022

Like many people across Colorado, Peter Gyory spent the height of the COVID-19 pandemic sitting at home with nothing to do. Then the ATLAS-based PhD candidate and game designer looked around his apartment: “I was surrounded by cardboard. I thought: ‘How could I make a game out of that?’”

The four projects presented by ATLAS at DIS'22

ATLAS research front and center at DIS’22

June 29, 2022

Researchers from ATLAS Institute's Unstable Design, THING, Living Matter and Superhuman Computing labs presented four papers, including three that received “Honorable Mention” awards, at the ACM conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS '22).

An arm with illustrations added of different emotions, symbolizing the emotional effect of touch.

DIS'22: Exploring how designers approach emotional robotic touch

June 22, 2022

Prior psychology findings show humans can communicate distinct emotions solely through touch. In this award-winning work presented at DIS'22, THING Lab researchers hypothesize that similar effects might also be apply to robotic touch.

Biofoam

DIS'22: Living Matter and Unstable Design labs introduce biofoam

June 21, 2022

Exploring biofoam as a Material for Tangible Interaction, authored by Eldy S. Lazaro Vasquez, Netta Ofer, Shanel Wu, Mary Etta West, Mirela Alistar and Laura Devendorf introduced the DIS audience to biofoam, a water soluble and biodegradable material that can be made conductive.

Felt

DIS'22: An Introduction to Weave Structure for HCI

June 21, 2022

“An Introduction to Weave Structure for HCI: A How-to and Reflection on Modes of Exchange,” authored by Assistant Professor Laura Devendorf, director of the Unstable Design Lab, Sasha De Koninck, an ATLAS-affiliated PhD candidate, and Etta Sandry, weaver-in-residence, received a “Best Pictorial Honorable Mention” award at the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS '22).

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