Berkeley Institute of Design (BiD) x MIT Media Lab
Jingyi Li, Jennifer Jacobs, Michelle Chang, Bjorn Hartmann
LINC is a research project conducted at BiD in partnership with Jennifer Jacobs at the Media Lab. We wanted to investigate how the immediate control of computer numerical control (CNC) machines could narrow the design-fabrication gap and combine manual art practice with digital fabrication. To do this, we created LINC, a sketch-based digital design tool for authoring 2D or 3D artworks in near-real time.
To use LINC, users draw strokes which are then executed in one of three modes:static, manual, or as-soon-as-possible. This is achieved through the use of either a large-scale or desktop-sized, modified CNC router. We evaluated LINC by conducting a study with eight artists.
My involvement in this project includes writing interfacing code to communicate between the ShopBot and web interface, styling the web tool UI, and 3D scanning sample objects. I also contributed by preparing user testing questions and tools, and co-authoring the paper.