Jennifer Jacobs, Leah Buechley

Abstract

The combination of computational design and digital fabrication offers many exciting possibilities for art, design, and creative expression. We seek to make computational design accessible by developing tools that allow novices to use programming and digital fabrication to produce personal and functional objects. In this paper, we describe our development of Codeable Objects, a preliminary computational-design programing tool developed to work in conjunction with digital-fabrication machines. We also present our evaluation of the tool based on a set of user studies in which people built computationally generated crafts, clothing, and accessories. These studies illuminated the viability (and challenges) of engaging novice programmers through design and digital fabrication, and provide a platform for future work in developing programming tools to support personal expression.