CMSC/MADD 23220: Inventing and Engineering Interactive Devices
(also nicknamed by previous students as "hci engineering")

Biography

Pedro's work asks the question: what if interfaces would share part of our body? Pedro has materialized these ideas by creating interactive systems based on electrical muscle stimulation. These devices use part of the wearer’s body for output, i.e., the computer can output by actuating the user’s muscles with electrical impulses, causing it to move involuntarily. The wearer can sense the computer’s activity on their own body by means of their sense of proprioception. Pedro’s wearable systems have shown to (1) increase realism in VR/AR, (2) provide a novel way to access information through proprioception, and (3) serve as a platform to experience and question the boundaries of our sense of agency