Sustainable Physical Intelligence: A piece of interactive material’s circular life—design, use, dispose
 

Abstract:  
The 21st-century computer should “weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it”, envisioned by Mark Weiser, which propelled the development of today’s computational devices that seamlessly blend into our surroundings. This vision, however, is overshadowed by a growing concern: the environmental impact of this rapid proliferation of devices. In our pursuit of the ubiquitous computing idea, the prevailing design paradigm centers on creating devices with optimal functionality and longevity, packing the most functionalities into the smallest foam factor, often overlooking considerations of recyclability.  My research centers around adding “sustainable physical intelligence” into our built environment, which consists of "robotic materials", have the ability to sense the surroundings, exchange information, harvest ambient energy, produce shape outputs, and adapt to environmental changes. Meanwhile, these materials are designed with the capability to self-destruct or be recyclable for new device lives. Picture one day 3D printing chocolates may encode Wi-Fi access password and be securely disposed by simply eating; a vivid artificial flower made of completely bio-degradable shape changing materials can deliver emotional interactions; and a surface filled with expandable particles can convey sensible tactile information and meanwhile can be entirely recycled.

Bio:
Tingyu Cheng is a final PhD candidate at Georgia Tech majoring in Human-Centered Computing, supervised by Professor Hyunjoo Oh and Gregory Abowd, under College of Computing. His main research interest and background lie in Solid Mechanics and Human-Computer Interaction fields to design, fabricate, and analyze novel-material based sensors and actuators and their interactions with us. Especially, He aim to add “sustainable physical intelligence” into our built environment, with not only allowing our environment to sense the different surrounding activities, actuate to indicate/deliver information or even communicate, but also paying attention to how this built-in materials intelligence can help them self-destruct or even further recycled as how our nature does. He published in major HCI venues (CHI, IMWUT, UIST) and scientific journals (Science Advances, npj Flexible Electronics, Smart Materials and Structures) and has won paper award (CHI 2023 honorable mention) and design award (core77 honorable mention/winner, fast company design award honorable mention/ finalist, Ars electronics honorable mention).