HydroMod : Constructive Modules for Prototyping Hydraulic Physical Interfaces

Abstract

In recent years, actuators that handle fluids such as gases and liquids have been attracting attention for their applications in soft robots and shape-changing interfaces. In the field of HCI, there have been various inflatable prototyping tools that utilize air control, however, very few tools for liquid control have been developed. In this study, we propose HydroMod, new constructive modules that can easily generate liquid flow and programmatically control liquid flow, with the aim of lowering the barrier to entry for prototyping with liquids. HydroMod consists of palm-sized small modules, which can generate liquid flow with the electrohydrodynamics (EHD) phenomenon by simply connecting the modules. Moreover, users can configure and control the flow path by simply recombining the modules. In this paper, we propose the design of the modules, evaluate the performance of HydroMod as a fluid system, and also show the possible application scenarios of fluid prototyping using this system.