05/08/2026
I am happy to announce that my first publication as first author has been just published. It has been a four month of endless nights. As someone coming from a practised-based maker background, doing a PhD Elisava feels like i have to rewire my brain, working directly on the motherboard. It is hard and it is just the beginning.
In this paper, I trace how Textile and Technology Academy in their quest for more sustainable practices through material tinkering methodologies reframe the field of through .
Thanks to my supervisor
And co-supervisor and 2nd author Oscar Tomico
This paper will be presebtef at the end of August in
This paper explores bio-based soft actuators as an emerging design-oriented innovation in Human Computer Interaction (HCI), examining how their adoption evolves within distributed, hybrid, lab-based educational programs. Through a longitudinal corpus analysis of the Fabricademy course open repository, the study analyses how participants integrate biomaterials into a soft robotics learning module and final projects. Combining quantitative and qualitative methods, the research traces the development of “biobotic” practices, revealing adoption supported by peer referencing and shared fabrication workflows. Two final projects illustrate iterative development and applications in HCI contexts. The findings identify persistent challenges, heterogeneous documentation quality and key affordances of bio-based actuators. Building on these insights, the paper discusses how biodesign challenges current practices in soft robotics design education and positions the repository as a living archive enabling iterative prototyping and sustainable material-driven interaction design.
Re-humanizing sensing Biobotic tutorial developed by Hala Amer Textile and Technology Academy
Dar a Luz Bioflaskin developed by Gabriela Lotaif Textile and Technology Academy
Silicon soft robot on the left, biosilicon on the right by Loana Flores Textile and Technology Academy
First public biosilicon recipe on the fabricademy archive by Amaya de Yavorsky in 2018