Collision as Interaction

We are delighted to invite you to the public PhD thesis defense of Anna Schaeffner on Thursday, June 25th at 2:30 pm. Anna will defend her thesis for a doctoral degree from Université PSL within the Sciences, Arts, Creation, Research (SACRe) program, specializing in Design. The research was prepared within the Reflective Interaction research group at EnsadLab, in co-supervision with the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material« (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) and the weißensee school of art and design berlin. The thesis was supervised by Samuel Bianchini, Patricia Ribault, and Carola Zwick.

In her work, titled »Soft Collision« (2024), Anna looks at the potential of safe physical interaction by embracing collision rather than avoiding it. The project creates a tangible interface between humans and robots as a tool for direct manipulation and live programming, introducing a novel design framework enabled by a deformable and sensitive membrane activated via pneumatics.

The public portion of the defense is open to everyone and will take place at the Central Laboratory (Zentrallabor) of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity«, located at Sophienstraße 22a in Berlin-Mitte. We look forward to welcoming you there to celebrate this milestone with Anna!

Free registration: https://tally.so/r/J9ogPX