Active Bending in Physics-Based Mixed Reality: The design and fabrication of a reconfigurable modular bamboo system

The research addresses the difficulties of designing with a non-standard and structurally dynamic material, such as bamboo, by using mixed reality (MR) as a virtual and collaborative design environment with integrated material physics simulations. This paper describes the development of a workflow that integrates (1) a reconfigurable modular bamboo system leveraging the active bending property of bamboo, (2) a custom physics-based MR environment facilitating on-site collaborative design, and (3) an MR user interface enabling users to customize material parameters unique to bamboo. The reconfigurable modular bamboo system is a kit of parts consisting of linear, triangular, and tetrahedral bundled bamboo modules that can be assembled on the ground and lofted into complex active bending structures. Through a Physics-Based Mixed Reality design framework, multiple users can reconfigure these modules virtually, dynamically, and collaboratively, iterating through several configurations on-site before deploying real-world resources. The result is a custom MR environment that enables non-expert users to participate in the design process through a user interface for managing module properties and connectivity.