is a: (nature + human) centric designer and researcher finding symbiosis between organic and artificial life

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The Biopod Co.
An organization democratizing the restoration of wetlands, equipping communities worldwide to come together and save our most biodiverse and productive ecosystems

Bio - intelligence
Designing cars powered by organisms, not algorithms

TEDx

Designing living machines with biological components to reduce e-waste

Aero

Designing intelligent materials embeded on robotic drones that sense air health and sequesters toxins within a location

Chitobot
Designing technology with a perishable skin

PFV
A vehicle inspired by living systems that facilitates a bridge between city and nature

S(kin)-orb
Enhancing human-to-human communication through personal robots

Threads

Turning clothes into computers, facilitating human-AI symbiosis to enhance productivity, creativity, and wellbeing

29.4°+4°…
Speculating human mutation in the age of global warming

Living Archives
DNA data storage as a means of Interrogating our post life digital remains

Living Materials

Designing materials that conduct ecosystem services

Robo-reparans

In the absense of humans, robots learn to take care of eachother

S(kin)-orb

Enhancing human to human communication through technology

Tools: 3D Printing • 3D Modelling • Robotics Design

Date: 2023

Team: Vir Joseph Naidu • Manini Banerjee • Cynthia Lu

When a person is anxious, their heart starts to race. When they are scared, they get goosebumps. These are bodily reactions that we cannot hide.

Despite this, we as a society have learned to create a facade over time to mask our emotions and state, as a way to appear emotionally intelligent, strong and desirable.

The S-Orb is a robotic entity that acts as a robotic extension in order to regain comfort in expressing your involuntary feelings.
Let us connect at an emotional level: Hold your S-Orb, connect to another’s S-Orb, and feel their emotions.

The S-Orb is a robotic entity that interrogates the boundaries of the uncanny valley through its amorphous skin-like embodiment.

The S-Orb is a symphony of pulse, skin, fluid and sensation that comes together to create unexplainable and
unspoken human-to-human and human-to-robotic bonds.

We have substituted metal and screws for skin and veins - thus ushering in this renaissance of what we perceive
to be robots to be and their appearance within humanity. While interaction with humanoid robots still remains unsettling,
the S-Orb acts as an intermediary stepping stone to introduce amorphous interaction to users to ease our adoption of these robots.

The robot acts as an object of telepresence that promotes remote human connection in a tangible way. This is a physical and intimate bond that could help us understand each other better - creating a more empathic and harmonious society.

The S-Orb reflects human emotion by reading its user’s electromyographic signals. Thus, triggering spinal motion, sweat and heat responses. This creates an innate human language which is expressed through the S-Orb’s embodiment.