Xin Wen

Line Lab lets anyone design animated robots with little more than cardboard, ink, and a mobile device. Our project leverages emerging technologies (including machine learning and augmented reality) through widely available devices to enhance low-resource creative play.

The UK faces an alarming shortfall of STEM skills, costing the nation an estimated 1.5 billion pounds annually. This calls for a strategic and sustainable approach to engineering education from primary school onwards in order to engage with the issue at its root.

A critical component of this educational transformation involves promoting iterative thinking in early education. Yet, actualizing this concept within classrooms poses challenges, particularly in Design & Technology (D&T), the closest subject area to engineering in early education: Time and resources are increasingly constrained. Kits can be prohibitively expensive for underfunded schools, and sustainability is an increasingly critical consideration.

Our solution was co-designed with D&T teachers and further developed through workshops with primary-aged students. By utilizing increasingly available devices like smartphones or tablets, Line Lab lets anyone upcycle scrap cardboard to design and iterate their own virtual toy robots to accomplish different tasks. It blends the tactile joy of physical creation with the magic of digital interaction.

Showcased at Ten Square Singapore (1 Short Street) as a part of the 2023 ART-ACT Festival, Box Body is a live interactive 3D performance of a giant inside a box on a curved billboard screen. It is made with an unique film-based production technique that can generate instantaneous anamorphic 3D visuals without the need for technical 3D modeling expertise, and results in the potential for live interaction.

The imagery concept is inspired by themes of urban isolation and systemic constriction. Visually inspired by Dimitris Papaioannou’s Transverse Orientation and by contortionist performance, we wanted to express the feeling of big-city isolation right above a busy thoroughfare. 

A special thank you to Ahad, our director of photography who took the project above and beyond in inception, our next photographer Erving, who kept the project alive, Ina, whose enthusiasm fueled us, Gary, who owns the building, and all our friends who made this happen.

Meet Skitty, a little creature made of iron filings that enjoys spending its idle time swaying in the sun and pondering life. It is curious but can be a bit shy, and very easily spooked!

Skitty is controlled by a magnet that operates on three axis through servo motors and gear-based mechanisms, responding to vibration and distance sensors.

The Sense of Place Toolkit is designed to help individuals foster a deeper personal relationship with their environment through simple, playful interactions. Consisting of an outdoor companion and an indoor card game, the toolkit aims to promote mindfulness by encouraging people to pay attention to their local surroundings.

The toolkit is created based on secondary research insights and participatory workshops conducted in London and Singapore. Through workshops across different scales and location, we realized that the concept of ‘sense of place’ is complex, intangible, and incredibly individualized. Yet it has so many implications for mental well being. We focused on ‘place attachment’ as the primary element within “sense of place”, and designed interactions that foster an individual’s felt connection with a place of their choice over time.