Drill Sergeant: Supporting Physical Construction Projects through an Ecosystem of Augmented Tools
Eldon Schoop, Michelle Nguyen, Daniel Lim, Valkyrie Savage, Sean Follmer, Björn Hartmann
CHI 2016 EA

Mapping techniques from software tutorials onto physical craft processes can assist novices in building multi-material assemblies. By providing in-situ step instructions and progress tracking, generating dynamic feedback on technique, and adapting tutorial content to a user's specific context and preferences, an ecosystem of smart tools can guide users through complete project tutorials. We demonstrate how such techniques can be enabled by augmenting common workshop tools (drill/driver, saw, router) with measurement, state sensing and interactive feedback; and by sequencing instructions across multiple tools. We validate the benefits of a smart tool ecosystem through reflections on a series of author-created design examples and informal feedback from four fab lab users.