Electropaper: Design and fabrication of paper-based electronic interfaces for the water environment

Abstract

The fabrication of underwater devices is necessary for the exploration of water environments and interactions in the Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) field. However, there are fewer approaches to support prototyping used in water environments. The existing prototype methods lack systematic waterproof treatments and provide insufficient software for balance and buoyancy analysis. To address these limitations, we present ElectroPaper, a new approach for the design and fabrication of prototypes used in water environments (surface or beneath) with paper-based electronic interfaces with a crease layer, hardware distribution layer, and hollow-out layer to support physical properties, such as waterproofing, foldability, and conformability. The approach includes a computational design tool for assisting in balance analysis, three-dimensional (3D) model unfolding, and circuit drawing. We describe the design and fabrication process and provide several example applications to illustrate the feasibility and utility of our approach. ElectroPaper provides an inexpensive and effective medium for the fabrication of customized digital prototypes for water environment use.