My demo booth at UIST
By Hannah Twigg-Smith
November 2022
In October I traveled to the 2022 ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) in Bend, Oregon. I went with three of my labmates (Blair, Danli, and Jasper) and a fellow PhD student from CSE (Chu). Blair, Danli and I were showing our work at the UIST demo session, which meant that we drove from Seattle to Bend in a car jammed full of five people and three small machines.
Due to the pandemic, this was the first in-person conference I have attended where I was able to present my own work. I demonstrated my software development framework, Dynamic Toolchains, which lets developers connect reusable widgets together into programs for niche digital fabrication workflows.
Maps plotted with my system during the demonstration session!
I showed an example toolchain for creating maps with an AxiDraw plotter, which is a small machine that can draw with pens. I took map requests from demo attendees, and was able to give some away to take home!
I had a lot of fun talking with people during the demo session, and I received many wonderful and thought-provoking questions. This is something that I've felt I've missed out on over the past two and a half years of remote conferences. In addition to meeting lots of new people, I was able to reconnect with a former HCDE undergrad in my lab (Willa Yang, who is now a PhD student at the University of Chicago) and see her give her first conference talk! Overall, our journey to UIST was a success and makes me excited for future conference adventures.