MakerCamp
Research at Scale Shenzhen Januay 2024
By Hila Mor
During my master’s program at MIT, I always watned to join the Research at Scale trip but never got the chance until this winter when all the stars aligned, and there I was on the plane from Berkeley to Shenzhen. I spent the next three very packed weeks in Shenzhen with an amazing group of fabrication/tech geeks from and an environment of contagious curiosity. We visited factories all around Shenzhen. My gratitude goes to Seeed, who funded our residency and symphosium and enabled this experience, along with Cedric, Seungwoo, and everyone on the organizing team for their hard work in putting together the symposium and the entire residency.
In my research I work on programmable materials which many times involves hacking an existing fabrication process and modifying it. I came to Shenzhen with interests in optics, textiles and paper fabrication but was also broadly just very curious to see the back stage of different fabrication processes. During three weeks we visited factories from flex PCB, LCD, injection molding, LED displays, to textiles, optical fibers, and lasers.
Outside of the factories, the industrial character of the city was blending with culture and nature in serendipitous and unexpected ways. My fist encounter with that was right on our way from HK airport to Shenzhen: an apocalyptic sight of hundreds, maybe thousands, of pallets were covering the ocean surface. Initially I thought it was fallen off a huge cargo ship, but after looking it up, it turned up to be a farm of oyster floating beds, and aDeep Bay restoration project of Hong Kong and Shenzhen.
Symposium and Hackathon
The first week we spent in Shenzhen was the most hectic part of the residency, we got to meet any new people from SusTech, Hongkong, Seeed, local industry, artists, and makers who gave us a local introduction to their perspective of Shenzhen. We spent the fisrt day in introduction and poster session, and the following days visiting factories, Seeed workshop and hackathon. The program alltogether was very packed but that gave us alot of time to get to know new people, learn about each other’s work and interests and make some plans for the factory visits in the following weeks.
HandSight
Together with Derrek Chow, Ganit Goldstein and Yue Chen, we made Hansight – color changing gloves that both capture colors from the environment and responsively change their own color. We used Seeed’s Xiao ESP 32, and embedded the camera palm side of the glove and programmable LED strip on the back of each glove. Some of the interesting behavior happened when we crossed connected the input of two gloves by directing the camera of each glove to read the color of the other. The colors on both gloves then syncs and the led starts to flash in white.
Factory Visits and Residency
Visiting factories and getting deeper understanding of the different steps in the fabrication process, was insightful. It is one thing to learn of a fabrication technology and another thing seeing it produced in a factory. But beyond that, it person exposed us to the guts of the machines, backrooms and aesthetics of the fabrication processes; cleanrooms and gowning, successful quality tests and failed ones, and seeing both the machine and human routines behind the making.
PCB Factory
We visited several PCB factories, one of them from Seeed studio. There were automated pick and place machines, soldering paste printing, and quality testing processes, which are partially automated.
Automated pick and place machine.
Soldering stencils.
A step that I find very cool, soldering the bottom part with a welding well (located indside that metal tube).
Quality testing.
A small machine that cuts the tape, not substantial to the process, but I just really liked it.
Textiles Factory
The highlight for me was the textile factory with knitting and weaving yechnologies. The range of sapmles material properties in the showroom was very impressive, from very stiff knitted structures to complex stetchable meshes, as well as variey of yarn properties. The factory itself was the biggest we visited (and they mentioned they have another facility outside of Shenzhen 12 times bigger!).
The machines operating were super sopisticated and complex and just so beutiful, I couldn’t stop myself from making all these gifs:
I got to make a few samples for my research using for sensing both knitted and woven tests. The test were very initial but gave me insights into the potential and accuracy possible with each technology.
Optic fiber
We visited a factory showroom, with textiles with embedded optical fibers that are laser engraved to make the light patterns.
EL fiber
We also met with a EL fiber manufacturer at SusTech who presented us some samples. It’s my first encounter with EL fiber and it was exciting because the light feels much more organic and natural than an LED.
Galleries, Art Village and So Many LEDs
LEDs
If I had to give Shenzhen a second name, I would be LED City. There were whole buildings covered in LED, either from the outside or the inside. The most beutiful one we got to see was this waterfall exhibit that responsds to people walking on it or mopping it (it does emit alot of heat, which makes me wonder about the use of energy here).
Art Village
We visited a museum and cafe in the art village which had very unique woodwork, paintings and calligraphy gallery.
The art village was also special for its narrow streets and walls, plants, covered with colorful stains.
Galleries and more
Rhizomatics Exhibition
Learning caligraphy
Visit to Fairy Lake Botanical Gardens
Taking the train – you can choose if you want a colder cart or a warmer one!
Visit to food market and old city
Conclusion
I recommend anyone who is working with fabrication and considering how to scale their work, to visit Shenzhen and stay at least 2-3 weeks. One of the main takeaways from this trip is this very wide set of opportunities to scale my work, making new connections in academia and in local factories. For anyone interested definitely check out Seeed Maker Camp next year and feel free to reach out with questions anytime.