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ProtoMold: An Interactive Vacuum Forming System for Rapid Prototyping

Published: 02 May 2017 Publication History

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel fabrication machine called ProtoMold, which uses interactive vacuum forming system for rapid prototyping. ProtoMold combines a dynamical shape-changing surface that consists of 12 × 8 linear actuators and a vacuum forming system. According to the shape of the surface, this system can mold various 2.5 dimensional objects quickly. Another characteristic of this system is that users can reuse molded objects and change their design; by applying tension and heat to a molded object, the object becomes flat and can be molded again. We also designed user several interaction methods for manipulating ProtoMold. In addition to loading predesigned data, the user can control the shape of the pin display directly using gesture input or physical objects.
We propose several use scenarios for ProtoMold: changing the design of a plate based on objects placed on it, fabricating a facemask with a printed texture, and fabricating electrical devices with printed electronic circuits. By using this system, we conducted a user test and discuss the known limitations and potential applications of our system.

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References

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  • (2024)FabRobotics: Fusing 3D Printing with Mobile Robots to Advance Fabrication, Robotics, and InteractionProceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction10.1145/3623509.3633365(1-13)Online publication date: 11-Feb-2024
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    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI '17: Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    May 2017
    7138 pages
    ISBN:9781450346559
    DOI:10.1145/3025453
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Published: 02 May 2017

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    Author Tags

    1. design methods
    2. interactive fabrication
    3. prototyping

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    Overall Acceptance Rate 6,199 of 26,314 submissions, 24%

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    Cited By

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    • (2024)FabRobotics: Fusing 3D Printing with Mobile Robots to Advance Fabrication, Robotics, and InteractionProceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction10.1145/3623509.3633365(1-13)Online publication date: 11-Feb-2024
    • (2024)Flushner: A 3D Printing Technique That Inserts Stepped Objects to Achieve Surface Uniformity and High SpeedExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3648653(1-5)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
    • (2023)ThermoFitProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/35808067:1(1-27)Online publication date: 28-Mar-2023
    • (2023)Thermoplastic Kilnforms: Extending Glass Kilnforming Techniques to Thermoplastic Materials using Ontology-Driven DesignProceedings of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3563657.3596027(263-281)Online publication date: 10-Jul-2023
    • (2023)PneuFab: Designing Low-Cost 3D-Printed Inflatable Structures for Blow Molding ArtifactsProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3580923(1-17)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
    • (2022)MagneShape: A Non-electrical Pin-Based Shape-Changing DisplayProceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3526113.3545645(1-12)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2022
    • (2022)(Dis)Appearables: A Concept and Method for Actuated Tangible UIs to Appear and Disappear based on StagesProceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3491102.3501906(1-13)Online publication date: 29-Apr-2022
    • (2022)MirrorForge: Rapid Prototyping of Complex Mirrors for Camera and Projector SystemsProceedings of the Sixteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction10.1145/3490149.3501329(1-7)Online publication date: 13-Feb-2022
    • (2022)Vacuum-Formed 3D Printed Electronics: Fabrication of Thin, Rigid and Free-Form Interactive SurfacesSN Computer Science10.1007/s42979-022-01174-13:4Online publication date: 6-May-2022
    • (2020)MorphingCircuitProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/34322324:4(1-26)Online publication date: 18-Dec-2020
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