The Salzburg Center for Smart Materials is a multidisciplinary research collaboration to develop new smart materials and applications. We are collaborating with material scientists and wood engineers to define material needs and envision applications for future smart materials. This topic is part of a stream of research investigating how smart materials can impact workflows in digital personal fabrication.

We are collaborating with the wood engineers at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences to tinker on fabrication methods and applications for 3D printing shape-changing objects. This topic is currently at an exploration phase, so we are looking for a student that is open to engage in discussing ideas rather than simply implementing a predefined task.

We sketched the concept of a software application that allows users to define the shape-changing behavior of a 3D model inside a CAD software (e.g. Blender, Rhino). So you would implement an application that communicates between the CAD software (3D modeling) and the 3D printer. Your code will implement the calculations and parameters (defined by the research team) that allow for shape change in objects printed with the developed filaments. The application will also generate the instructions for the 3D printer (GCODE).

We are looking for a student with solid programming knowledge and willing to work on a dynamic project. The dynamic aspect comes in the fact that you will be involved in further developing the concept described above. We will evaluate which CAD application and programming languages fits our needs. You are not required to have 3D modeling or 3D printing experience but since these are essential to the project, be ready to take the time to learn (with our support, of course – we are also learning).

Within the interdisciplinary COMET project “Digital Motion” we are looking to shed light on interacting with real time motion data using spatial sound. To investigate this field, we will be building high fidelity prototypes for user testing in the lab and on the piste together with our industry partners (e.g., Atomic) and scientific partners from PLUS Sports Sciences and Salzburg Research.

The goal is to develop a mobile system that utilizes spatial sound – ideally “HRTF: Head related Transform Functions” – to provide real-time embodied motion feedback.

We are looking for a student with experience in Unity development and some experience in sound design.

Within the interdisciplinary COMET project “Digital Motion” we are looking to shed light on interacting with motion and emotion data using modified or data composed music. To investigate this field, we will be building high fidelity prototypes for user testing in the lab and on the piste together with our industry partners (e.g., Atomic) and scientific partners from PLUS Sports Sciences and Salzburg Research.

The goal is to develop a mobile system that utilizes the users music or creates music based on the users movements to provide real-time embodied motion feedback in skiing.

We are looking for a student with experience in programming audio filters, composing or similar.

This thesis will engage with remote interactions between family members or between friends. Such remote interactions are (not only during pandemics) essential for humans to maintain their relationships. Although a variety of audio-visual communication tools exist, they lack important qualities of face-to-face contact, such as touching the same objects, the possibility to hug each other, or even feeling the same weather.

In order to explore possibilities for including physicality in remote interactions, the student will identify an existing object that is important in remote relationships, develop a design (concept), prototypically implement it and evaluate it.