Team

Dr. Alissa N. Antle (PI)
Dr. Yumiko Murai (Assistant Prof. Education, SFU)
Ms. Alisha Collins (Brilliant Labs Community Partner)

Graduate students:
Alexandra Kitson (post-doc)
John Desnoyers-Stewart
Yves Candau
Katrien Jacobs
Ofir Sadka
Zoe Dao- Kroeker (NSERC USRA, VPR USRA)
Azadeh Adibi (Educ. Tech., SFU)

Learn more here

Project Summary

The Maker Kit serves as a research instrument to investigate how we can use critical making + computational thinking to support youth (aged 11-14) to explore and reflect on potential impacts of (bio)wearables (e.g. smart watches, fitbits) on their developing identity, and senses of autonomy, agency and authenticity. The kit is customizable and each decision point provides a scaffolded opportunity for critical reflection. The kit comes unassembled and includes a breath-sensing wearable, tangible pinwheel and reflection cards.

Research Objectives

Design, develop, deploy and evaluate if and how a critical making workshop enables youth to critically reflect on ethical issues related to (bio)wearables as they learn technological skills related to wearable technologies. During the workshop youth assemble and customize a tangible-wearable system that uses a biowearable (on-body breath sensor) to control a hybrid physical-digital pinwheel seated in a lightbox base (image on right). The software component of the kit utilizes under-determined code points, scaffolded with reflection cards (see Critical Reflection Card Set: Biowearables), to support youth to reflect on ethical issues that arise and can be addressed during the making process.

Social Impact Goals

Develop a biowearable maker kit for youth that enables critical reflection on ethical and personal issues arising with tracking devices as part of computation thinking education.

Keywords

Design ethics, critical making, tangible computing, wearables, quantification of self, virtual workshop, youth.

Technology

BITalino piezoelectric respiration sensor, Adafruit Huzzah microprocessor board, plastic pulleys, laser cut birch plywood, origami paper, elastic band, Adafruit Motor Featherwing, DC motor, 8 bit RGB LED matrix, misc. electronic components and breadboards, custom stretch respiration sensor, open source B.Board microprocessor & prototyping platform, PDF assembly guide and videos.

Community Partners

Jeff Wilson (Executive Director), Alisha Collins, Josh Keyes, Amanda Sherman (Brilliant Labs, Atlantic Canada).

Funders

SFU Innovates, NSERC Discovery.