Jacob Solomon
Connector Contributor
The room filled with curious students as UMass Lowell’s 2014 Artist-In-Residence Leah Buechley prepared her workshop.
Designer, engineer, educator and founder of MIT’s High-Low Tech Group, Buechley has worked for years with lesser-known electrically conductive materials in an effort to redefine the tools of today’s engineers. Having developed the Lilypad Arduino and delivered a Ted Talk in 2011 about the practicality of conductive ink, she has made it her mission to innovate.
“I didn’t really know until I went to graduate school that there was a community of people who combined art and technology,” says Buechley, having spent much of her young adulthood balancing a double-life of artistic expression and engineering. She began working at the MIT media lab to combine aesthetic design with science. She worked on the basis that a more unified, holistic approach would make engineering more accessible to people of all interests. “We think that expanding the palette of what you can build with technology is an awesome way to engage lots of different people in making technology for themselves.”
On Wednesday, Nov. 5, Buechley brought her Circuit Sticker kit to UMass Lowell for the This Is A Circuit workshop, at which 15 students were provided with the raw materials to “sketch” their own simple circuits on paper. With sprightly energy and gesture, Buechley gave a brief presentation on some of the innovations of the High-Low Tech Group, including a built-from-scratch cellphone, and an interactive LED-lit painting. (For more information, visit www.highlowtech.org) The students then worked in pairs to assemble simple circuits and demonstrate simple concepts of electrical engineering, as Buechley mingled with and challenged them to be creative.
Buechley’s artist-in-residence exhibit celebrates the works of the High-Low Tech group and is on display now in Mahoney Hall’s University Gallery on South Campus. The exhibit will be open through December 5: Monday through Wednesday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
