It’s one thing to study how the relief and albedo of the ice sheets affected weather patterns during the Last Glacial Maximum 20,000 years ago. And it’s a whole other thing to develop an interactive, engaging museum exhibit on the subject for general audiences. But that’s just what teams from the (CIRES), the (NSF NCAR), NOAA and ATLAS managed to do.

Millennia ago, ice sheets formed over huge swaths of North America that were nearly as tall as some of our continent’s highest mountains. They were so massive that they essentially created their own weather.

Former CIRES postdoc Dillon Amaya (now at NOAA’s ) along with Kris Karnauskas, CIRES fellow and associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, with NSF funding. 

Researchers long hypothesized that the ice’s massive scale during the Last Glacial Maximum was enough to block the jet stream and change weather patterns sweeping in from the Pacific Ocean. For example, back then the area around what is today Southern California was much wetter while the Pacific Northwest was relatively drier. Today that is reversed.

Through advanced computer simulations, the CIRES team discovered that albedo creates a cooling effect that alters atmospheric circulation in ways that cannot be explained solely by the sheer size of ice sheets. Albedo is a measure of the amount of light reflected off of a surface—and ice sheets reflect a lot of sunlight, significantly impacting wind patterns. The research showed the Pacific Ocean was the driver behind the changes.

Translating Complex Research
In spring 2022, ATLAS offered a class called Design a Science Exhibit for ATLAS and Computer Science students. It centered on designing approachable museum exhibits that translate hard science for everyday people. Led by ATLAS director Mark Gross and adjunct faculty member Wayne Seltzer in collaboration with Eddie Goldstein from the Denver Nature and Science Museum, student teams partnered with researchers and museum specialists to prototype exhibitions that incorporated coding, materials selection, fabrication and storytelling.

Gross notes, “We should be teaching our engineers to communicate with broad audiences, particularly around climate change. We might do good science and engineering, but we’re not always good at communicating it to the public.”

A team of CU Boulder students formed a group to translate the CIRES ice sheet research into an exhibit prototype, including, ATLAS PhD student, David Hunter; Natasha Smith (MS Environment, Environmental Policy); and ATLAS undergraduate students Caileigh Hudson, Logan Turner and Julia Tung.

Seltzer explains, “The that inspired this exhibit is not all that accessible to readers who are not climate scientists. The students focused on what they decided was essential knowledge—the factors that result in an ice age and how computer models can help us predict climate change.”

Experimenting with Form
The team originally conceived of a sandbox as the project medium. As you moved the sand around to build different topographies, visual projections overlaid from above would show how weather patterns change. The idea made sense in theory, but practical stipulations (sand can be challenging to manage in a museum space) pushed the team in a different direction.

Hunter details this evolution, “We made little blocks that represent [topographic features], and then you could put the blocks on top of each other so you could sculpt [a landscape.] As a team, we went about designing and building the whole rig and had a prototype by the end of the semester, and we got to show it alongside everyone else's work at NCAR.” 

NSF NCAR science educators were so impressed with the prototype that they invited the team to work on a permanent installation. 

Making it Real

The biggest challenge then became orchestrating all the different people and components involved in developing a functional exhibit that could live for the long-term with as little ongoing maintenance as possible. Hunter notes, “There’s the digital prototype building, but then there’s the physical make-this-real part as well as the education part and ensuring visitors would get the right message.” 

After two years of iterative collaboration with scientists, curators, coders, fabricators and educators, the exhibit is now officially on permanent display at the Mesa Lab Visitor’s Center. Thousands of guests each year will be able to explore how massive ice sheets can alter the climate in surprising ways.

Amaya related, “This was probably one of the most gratifying experiences of my scientific career. It's not often that a piece of research like this leads to such tangible educational outcomes, so I'm super proud of our team for seeing it through! It's my hope that this exhibit can help illustrate some of these exotic climate interactions so that visitors can leave with a better physical intuition for how and why things were so wildly different.”

If you go:

1850 Table Mesa Drive
Boulder, CO

Free Admission

Hours:
Monday - Friday: 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. MT
Saturday, Sunday & Holidays: 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. MT

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The ATLAS Institute champions radical creativity and invention as a means of expanding the scope of our understanding of the world and building community. The ATLAS Audio Frequency Lab, led by associate teaching professor and Audio Frequency Lab director, David Schaal, encapsulates these ideals as a creative experimental space for sound production, sampling and musical performance. 

Recently, groups of lab members along with students from across CU Boulder took part in the Synthux International Synth Design Hackathon, a multi-day competition to design and create a working prototype of an electronic synthesizer, and an ATLAS team was honored with the top prize for their 4-player Collaborator synth!

, the hackathon organizer, is a Netherlands-based group founded by musician, designer and teacher, Roey Tsemah, to create learning activities for sound artists and makers.

The SynthUX Hackathon 2024 featured teams from universities around the world who selected from a set of prompts centered on the theme of “Humanity” to design an interactive, sound-producing device. Schaal has been active with SynthUX for several years as a way to build cross-campus community around collaborative making. 

The Collaborator team, Julian Ferraro, Nick Lankau, Nik Madhu, Ana Mahadevan, and Josh Thies, chose the prompt “Virtual Human Connection” to guide their ideation. The prompt stated, “Explore the dynamics of human connection in the age of technology. Depict the intersection between virtual and physical connections, highlighting the challenges and opportunities.”

Lankau said, “The Collaborator is inspired by the peace that I find in music creation and the joy of playing with sound. I want other people who may not have musical backgrounds to be able to experience this. It’s also inspired by jam sessions I’ve had with friends and the desire to be able to do that with my brothers who are less musically inclined. Collaboratively creating music is inextricably human and should be accessible to everyone.”

This spirit of collaboration is what the hackathon is all about. Schaal explains, “instead of a competition-competition, it's more sharing ideas, building something cool and sharing with others to inspire future coursework and education.” (This year, CU teams faced an additional hurdle to collaboration in overcoming two days of snow-related campus closures that disrupted the early phases of their work.)

Check out a demo of Collaborator in action

Designing and fabricating a working synthesizer in a custom enclosure in just three days? “That’s ATLAS,” Schaal notes. “It’s what we're capable of. The BTU and everybody here preparing these students to do something [like this] is very special and unique.” The team demoed Collaborator at ATLAS EXPO 2024, where it held up to dozens of community members going hands-on with it.

In recognition of their efforts, Ferraro, Lankau and Schaal traveled to Berlin to demo Collaborator at , “the world’s largest trade fair and festival for electronic musical instruments” featuring “over 250 exhibitors from all over the world, while also offering a comprehensive cultural program that celebrates the culture and joy of electronic music-making.” They were blown away by the support and engagement they received and the connections they made among industry pros and musicians. 

As for what comes next, Lankau relates, “I want to continue working on this concept of collaborative and accessible audio. Making another version of the Collaborator sounds like a blast, and we already have so many ideas on how to improve it. Being able to hone in on the conceptual niche of collaborative and accessible audio just opens up so many ideas for me.

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College of Engineering and Applied Science Graduating Student Awards

Congratulations to the Spring 2024 Graduating Student Award winners for the College of Engineering and Applied Science! We’re excited to see six ATLAS students among the recipients this year. View the complete list of winners on the College of Engineering & Applied Science awards page.

Academic Engagement Award

Ashlyn Duy, BS in Computer Science and Creative Technology & Design
Emma Hopson, BS in Creative Technology & Design
Cayla Kennedy, BS in Creative Technology & Design
Jack Manning, BS in Creative Technology & Design

Community Impact Award

Kade Eisen, BS in Creative Technology & Design
Brian Kimathi Muriithi, BS in Creative Technology & Design

Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (JEDI) Award

Kade Eisen, BS in Creative Technology & Design

Perseverance Award

Kade Eisen, BS in Creative Technology & Design

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CU Boulder offers 10-week summer research internships for rising juniors and seniors through the Summer Multicultural Access to Research Training (SMART) program. The program aims to improve access to STEM research for students from groups underrepresented in science, math and engineering, including racial/ethnic minorities, first-generation college students, Pell grant recipients, individuals with disabilities, and students who have overcome significant challenges in pursuit of higher education.

The SMART program prepares students to become competitive applicants for doctoral programs nationwide by pairing them with faculty who, along with other personnel in their labs, mentor them through an authentic research experience. This year, ATLAS Institute’s ACME Lab, directed by professor Ellen Yi-Luen Do, hosts two students through the SMART program, Sergio Bustamante and Ignatius Nwankwo (see the full list of 2023 mentors and mentees at CU Boulder).

Sergio Bustamante explores printed paper circuits

Sergio expects to graduate University of Florida next spring with a B.S. in electrical engineering. What started as a youthful obsession with Lego has translated into expertise in coding and a desire to design circuits and build prototypes. He also has an interest in making music, which led to his research work at ATLAS.

Sergio is building a music production tool using the Fabricating Paper Circuits techniques developed by fellow ACME Lab members Ruhan Yang (ATLAS ACME Lab member, PhD student), and Krithik Ranjan (ATLAS ACME Lab member, PhD student), and the folded paper button technology and Sensing Kirigami carbon coated paper technique developed by fellow ACME Lab members Clement Zhang, postdoctoral research associate, and Peter Gyory, PhD candidate. 

He details his process: “I'm designing a paper tangible interface and keyboard. A lot of the techniques are ways to make interfaces that you can move, you can manipulate, you can press down, you can switch—just out of paper.”

“I've never designed a MIDI controller nor have I even owned one. So making one, I had to do extensive research and because of that it's been a process of trial and error. Always plan for things to take a bit longer than you anticipate—that’s the thing that I've learned.”

MIDI controller prototype made of paper-based materials and copper tape.

Ignatius Nwankwo researches accessible animation tools

Ignatius is a rising junior at Morgan State University majoring in electrical engineering with proficiencies in coding and an interest in game development. In his spare time, he has worked on developing a 2D platformer action game. 

Ingatius says, “Since I was a kid, I was always interested in how electronics worked. I wanted to learn the underlying technologies behind things like game consoles and remote controls.” 

At ATLAS, his research augments PhD student Krithik Ranjan’s project, a low-cost, paper-based kit for children to create animations and engage with computational thinking without the need for expensive equipment. The tool empowers children to draw scenes on paper and animate them with a simple smartphone app. Ignatius has written code to allow young animators to shrink and grow sprites as if they are coming to or moving away from the viewer, a sort of 3D effect in a two-dimensional environment. He is also working on features for changing camera angles and backgrounds and adding dialog bubbles.

Ignatius explains, “There are two types of sheets—backgrounds and characters. You can draw whatever you want on them and when you arrange them together, you get something called a key frame. When you have multiple key key frames and you combine them together using the app, you get a smooth animation between the two points.”

In addition to adding a new programming language to his repertoire, Ignatius says he has learned to ask for help and improved his ability to collaborate with a team, vital skills in the lab and in the workforce.

Cartoonimator scene and character cels with smartphone app

Revealing their final research

Just before their time at ATLAS concludes, Sergio and Ignatius will fly to Hartford, Connecticut, to attend the , a conference offering skill-building, networking and professional development opportunities for undergraduates. There they will have the chance to show their research in a poster session in addition to attending workshops on navigating graduate programs, participating in a recruiting fair and meeting leaders in their field. 

Then in their last week back in the ACME Lab, Sergio and Ignatius will deliver papers and present their final projects in the SMART program poster session. 

A SMART approach

Professor Do notes that CU Boulder has two major functions: to disseminate knowledge (teaching) and to generate knowledge (research). Most undergraduate students only take courses to gain knowledge, and are not part of generating knowledge through research. They may not even see what it’s like to be a graduate student working in a research lab.

She reflects, “As a person of color working in engineering, and often the minority representative in meetings, I know first-hand what it feels like to be in the underrepresented group. I like hosting SMART students at ACME Lab as it’s important for undergraduates to learn to work with graduate students through hands-on experience in conducting research. It’s also an opportunity for graduate students to mentor others. Learning and teaching enhance the growth of knowledge and understanding.”

Diversity in research is essential for expanding the whole of human knowledge. At ATLAS, we’re excited to continue to participate in SMART and other programs aimed at achieving this goal.

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ATLAS is well-represented at this year’s conference convening at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh from July 10-14, 2023. This year’s theme is resilience. 

"Resilience is at once about flexibility, durability, and strength as well as a sense of mutuality and hope where solidaristic modes of engagement make new kinds of worlds possible. 

This also recognizes that resilience takes many forms in design discourse, ranging across: indigenous knowledge, more-than-human perspectives, and the relationship between human, material and artificial intelligences."

It is exciting to see members across more than half of ATLAS labs represented in this year’s proceedings, with broad-reaching research covering microbiomes as materials for interactive design; 3D printing with spent coffee grounds; personal informatics systems; improving cross-disciplinary collaboration among artists and researchers; expressive movement for altering emotions and awareness; and the intersection of crocheting and data. Take a look:

Fiona Bell (ATLAS PhD alum), Michelle Ramsahoye (ATLAS affiliate PhD student), Joshua Coffie (ATLAS MS alum), Julia Tung (ATLAS BS student), and Mirela Alistar (ATLAS Living Matter Lab director, assistant professor)

Our bodies are home to an unseen ecosystem of microbes that live in symbiosis with us. In this work, we extend the “human” in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) to include these microbes. Specifically, we explore the skin microbiome as an intimate material for interaction design. Viewing the body as a microbial interface, we start by presenting a method to grow our microbiome such that it becomes visible to the human eye. We then present a design space that explores how different environmental parameters, such as temperature and growth media, can be controlled to influence the color of the microbiome. We further investigate how our interactions in a daily uncontrolled environment (e.g., exercising, hugging, typing) can impact the microbiome. We demonstrate several wearable applications that reveal and control the microbiome. Lastly, we address the challenges and opportunities of working with the microbiome as an intimate, living material for interaction design.

Michael L. Rivera (ATLAS Utility Research Lab Director, assistant professor), S. Sandra Bae (ATLAS PhD student)

The widespread adoption of 3D printers exacerbates existing environmental challenges as these machines increase energy consumption, waste output, and the use of plastics. Material choice for 3D printing is tightly connected to these challenges, and as such researchers and designers are exploring sustainable alternatives. Building on these efforts, this work explores using spent coffee grounds as a sustainable material for prototyping with 3D printing. This material, in addition to being compostable and recyclable, can be easily made and printed at home. We describe the material in detail, including the process of making it from readily available ingredients, its material characteristics and its printing parameters. We then explore how it can support sustainable prototyping practices as well as HCI applications. In reflecting on our design process, we discuss challenges and opportunities for the HCI community to support sustainable prototyping and personal fabrication. We conclude with a set of design considerations for others to weigh when exploring sustainable materials for 3D printing and prototyping.

For additional details, see our article on how this and other Utility Research Lab projects won awards at the Rocky Mountain RepRap Festival.

Michael Jeffrey Daniel Hoefer, Stephen Voida, (ATLAS affiliate assistant professor, founding faculty, information science)

A grand challenge for computing is to better understand fundamental human needs and their satisfaction. In this work, we design a personal informatics technology probe that scaffolds reflection on how time-use satisfies Max-Neef's fundamental needs of being, having, doing, and interacting via self-aspects, relationships and organizations, activities, and environments. Through a combination of a think-aloud study (N=10) and a week-long in situ deployment (N=7), participants used the probe to complete self- aspect elicitation and Day Reconstruction Method tasks. Participants then interacted with network visualizations of their daily lives, and discovered insights about their lives. During the study, we collected a dataset of 662 activities annotated with need satisfaction ratings. Despite challenges in operationalizing a theory of need through direct elicitation from individuals, personal informatics systems show potential as a participatory and individually meaningful approach for understanding need satisfaction in everyday life.

Ruhan Yang (ATLAS PhD student), Ellen Yi-Luen Do (ATLAS ACME Lab director, faculty member)

This paper explores the implementation of embedded magnets to enhance paper-based interactions. The integration of magnets in paper-based interactions simplifies the fabrication process, making it more accessible for building soft robotics systems. We discuss various interaction patterns achievable through this approach and highlight their potential applications.

[Workshop]
Laura Devendorf (ATLAS Unstable Design Lab director, assistant professor), Leah Buechley, Noura Howell, Jennifer Jacobs, Hsin-Liu (Cindy) Kao, Martin Murer, Daniela Rosner, Nica Ross, Robert Soden, Jared Tso, Clement Zheng (ATLAS PhD alum)

While cross-disciplinary collaboration has long been, and continues to be a cornerstone of inventive work in interactive design, the infrastructures of academia, as well as barriers to participation imposed by our professional organizations, make collaboration for some groups harder than others. In this workshop, we’ll focus specifically on how artists residencies are addressing (or not) the challenges that artists, craftspeople, and/or independent designers face when collaborating with researchers affiliated with DIS. While focusing on the question “what is mutual benefit”, this workshop seeks to combine the perspectives of artists as well as researchers collaborating with artists (through residencies or otherwise) to (1) reflect on benefits or deficiencies in what we are currently doing and (2) generate resources for our community to effectively structure and evaluate our methods of collaboration with artists. Our hope is to provide recognition of and pathways for equitable inclusion of artists as a first step towards broader infrastructural change. 

Refer to the for more details on this research. 

 

[Demo]
Ruojia Sun (ATLAS PhD student), Althea Vail Wallop (ATLAS MS student), Grace Leslie (ATLAS Brain Music Lab director, assistant professor), Ellen Yi-Luen Do (ATLAS ACME Lab director, faculty member)

Movement forms the basis of our thoughts, emotions, and ways of being in the world. Informed by somaesthetics, we design for "taking up space" (e.g. encouraging expansive body movements), which may in turn alter our emotional experience. We demonstrate SoniSpace, an expressive movement interaction experience that uses movement sonification and visualization to encourage users to take up space with their body. We use a first-person design approach to embed qualities of awareness, exploration, and comfort into the sound and visual design to promote authentic and enjoyable movement expression regardless of prior movement experience. Preliminary results from 20 user experiences with the system show that users felt more comfortable with taking up space and with movement in general following the interaction. We discuss our findings about designing for somatically-focused movement interactions and directions for future work.

[Demo]
Mikhaila Friske (ATLAS affiliate PhD student)

This demo focuses around crocheting and data. In addition to a physical workbook for conference goers to peruse and try, there will be a few small set-ups for specific activities and a small craft circle for people to craft within if they so choose.

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Graduating in May 2023 with degrees in Creative Technology and Design, these graduate and undergraduate students listed are recognized for exceptional accomplishments, having demonstrated initiative in their academic and extracurricular activities, completing outstanding research or creative projects, or contributing significantly to the ATLAS community.

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Who: All are welcome

What: ATLAS Expo

When: Thursday, May 4, 2023, 4–6p.m.

Where: Roser ATLAS Center, 1125 18th St., Boulder

Cost: Free! 
 

ATLAS Expo is back and, with over 120 student research projects included, it promises to be the biggest and most exciting Expo we’ve ever had.

This annual event highlights innovative work by graduate and undergraduate students in the College of Engineering and Applied Science studying Creative Technology and Design (CTD). Those attending the event can go hands-on with a rich array of games, interactive experiences, art installations, electronics and more.

Radical creativity and invention are the key concepts that bond the ATLAS community. It’s a place where engineering, computer science and design meet art and expression—all of which will be on full display at Expo this year. 

“As engineers and designers, we’re often heads-down in research. Expo is always exciting because our research labs and CTD students get a chance to show off the brilliant work they have been immersed in all year,” said Mark Gross, ATLAS Director.

From practical solutions to immersive experiences, ATLAS students will showcase a staggering range of concepts at Expo. Here is a small sample of what to expect:

• Scopaesthesia by Miles Lewis, Logan Turner and Sam Lippincott — An interactive installation featuring animatronic eyes powered by computer vision to merge the effects of scopaesthesia induced by human eyes with an awareness of digital surveillance.
• Solar Stones by Kai Hughes, Chris Gaines and Caileigh Hudson — 3D tactile replications of stellar rock carvings made by the Ancient Puebloan people in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, developed in collaboration with NASA's PUNCH team and FISKE planetarium. 
• The Rental Set by Annika Mctamaney — An open-source project using CNC technology to help renters own stylish, hardware-free furniture that is easy to move homes with and fun to create. 
• Storm Drain by Timon Hume — An atmospheric game level that takes the player deep inside a maze of dark pipes where they try to survive long enough to retrieve something valuable that has been washed away.
• Notes on Growing by Brie Musser, Riley Meere and Zander Gilbert) — An interactive audiovisual experience designed for students to meditate on the time and effort they put into their college career and enjoy the fruits of their labor. 
• HookBook by Ryan Monteleone and Tomas Garcia — A mobile-first web application designed for fishermen that makes logging personal catches & accessing lake reports, efficient and simple. 
• A Parting Gift To My Perfect Self by Nancy Yoder — A stop-motion animation abstracting one’s personal journey of overcoming chronic perfectionism through the use of collage. 
• Rally by ​​Jordan Evans, Olivia Blankenship — A social app that flips the script on social media, encouraging face-to-face interaction and the making of memories rather than isolation and app addiction. 
• spect by Frank Chytil and Anna Lowrimore — An installation featuring live footage of the audience’s eye on an arrangement of CRT TVs, evoking the reflection and dissection of oneself that occurs with digital interaction.

The two-hour event kicks off at 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 4, and is open to all. Free registration link above.

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The appeal of Dashboard-Zero is its simplicity.

User-testing is employed across almost every industry, most often with surveys given to users after they experience a product. However, memory is fallible–feedback captured in the moment, as users experience a product, yields much more reliable information. But how can you do that without creating a distraction?

Elsy Meis, who graduated with a BS in Creative Technology and Design this spring, proposes an approach in a paper she will present later this month at the Human Computer Interaction International Conference, held online June 26—July 1. Titled “HCI Strategies for Informing the Design of a Teacher Dashboard: How Might Real-Time Situational Data Determine the Potential for Technological Support in the Classroom?,” she discusses user testing of a teacher dashboard developed by a CU Boulder team from the Institute of Cognitive Sciences.

Teacher dashboards provide teachers with information about real-time student learning. In this case, the system gauges student learning by using natural language processing to monitor conversations among small groups of students working on specific problems. Based on the content of the conversations, the system provides the teacher with a real-time assessment of student learning group by group. 

However, given the existing stresses of the classroom environment, the user experience for such technology must be finely tuned for teachers to adopt it. In her paper, Meis critiques the current retrospective user-survey approach to testing, pointing out the weakness of relying on memory. Instead, she proposes an approach to gathering data during the lesson that involves a single red button on an iPad:

“When they press the button, they are answering yes to the question: ‘Are you feeling overwhelmed?’” says Meis. “The testing sessions are recorded from multiple angles, so have all the context and it’s not hard to figure out why they were feeling stressed.” 

“Until now, the research group has interviewed teachers after their class ended to determine how they felt at different points during the class, or they would interview teachers based on hypothetical situations. Using this approach, we get more information without having to ask them,” says Meis. 

The HCI International selection committee for late-breaking work clearly agreed, admitting her paper to the conference. “The paper deals with a very specific application of this idea,” says Meis, “but the hope is that it is seen as applying to a wide range of user-testing scenarios.”

This research was supported by the NSF National AI Institute for Student-AI Teaming (iSAT) (DRL ).  

Publication

Elsy Meis, Samuel Pugh, Rachel Dickler, Mike Tissenbaum and Leanne Hirshfield, 2022, “HCI Strategies for Informing the Design of a Teacher Dashboard: How Might Real-Time Situational Data Determine the Potential for Technological Support in the Classroom?” In Proceedings of the 2022 HCI International, pdf. (Virtual—June 26-July 1, 2022).
 

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