Angelika Mader

PROFILE

Angelika Mader is Assistant Professor at the Human Media Interaction group and Lecturer at the Creative Technology bachelor programme at the University of Twente.

Angelika Mader studied computer science with mathematics at the Technical University in Munich and did there also her PhD in Theoretical Computer Science. As a postdoc, first at the University of Nijmegen and later at the University of Twente, she moved towards the area of embedded systems, exploring the possibilities to increase the quality of such systems by modelling and verification. At the University of Twente she is an assistant professor since 2002, in the groups “Distributed and Embedded Systems” (computer science), “Robotics and Mechatronics” (electrical engineering), and since 2015 in “Human Media Interaction” (computer science).

Angelika Mader is coordinator of the H2020 project WEAFING starting in January 2019. She has contributed to the EU projects VHS (Verification of Hybrid Systems), AMETIST (Advanced Methods for Timed Systems) and DESTECS (Design Support and Tooling for Embedded Control Software). From NWO she received grants for “Verification of PLC applications” (postdoc), “Methods of Modelling Embedded Systems” (MEERVOUD), and “Modelling Control Aspects of Embedded Systems” (with R. Wieringa, NWO open competition). She has been reviewer for a number of conferences and journals, a committee member at NWO for MEERVOUD and VENI grants, and supervised PhD students and bachelor students. Angelika Mader was involved in setting up and developing a new bachelor programme “Creative Technology” at the University of Twente.

Research

Creative Technology

1. Education in Creative Technology has design as focus, technology forms part of a toolbox and is not a goal in its own. This results in a shift of learning goals for technology education wrt “classical” engineering. Students should be able to apply technology in a creative way, as material increasing their expressiveness. To this end, teaching methods are needed that stimulate students to actively integrate technology in their personal toolboxes. Students need to become owner of their learning process, driven by curiosity with failure as important source of progress.
   An ongoing challenge is that design subjects are inherently feedback intensive, and not scalable straightforwardly. We have to identify teaching methods that allow to provide quality for the students minimising overhead, by, e.g., giving students a more active role.
   
   - Nov 2018 article "meet the teacher" in U-today magazine  (University of Twente - in Dutch)
   - Oct 2018 Teaching Award for Best Practices in Informatics by Informatics Europe for Tinkering in Informatics as a Teaching Method (together with Ansgar Fehnker and Alma Schaafstal)
   - June 2017 article in A Tribute to Excellent Teachers by the faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science.
   
   
2. The method of Creative Technology is in the first place user centered, most often starting from a user problem, only sometimes having technology as a starting point (“how can this technology be used for a user application?”). It has phases of divergence and convergence, at the same time iterating on building and evaluating prototypes in short cycles. User experience is a crucial aspect, next to functionality. Accordingly, user evaluations during the prototyping phase and at the end of the design process are standard. The tasks here are to identify, illustrate and justify this design process, making it part of a definition of Creative Technology as a new field of its own. It is also a step in making the contribution, perspective and questions of Creative Technology as scientific and design discipline in a context of its neighbouring disciplines, such as Interaction Design, Human Media Interaction, Industrial Design, Computer Science or Electrical Engineering.

Wearable Technology

1. Actuators in wearables are much less investigated than sensors. What kind of feedback is possible? What, if we do not want full led-illumination? There is a playground to explore, defined by personal space, fashion aspects, low cognitive load, context sensitivity, application domains and more.
2. Coaching and feedback. Wearables are close to our skin, feedback can be very direct and have higher impact by working more physically than cognitive (like statistics on the smartphone). What kind of feedback is necessary to have impact, without being annoying, is one of the questions to address here.
3. Interaction paradigms of wearables are still too much derived from computer interaction and smart phones. What we are interested in are interaction paradigms that take our normal movements and interaction with garment into account, like in the example where pulling the sleeves over the wrists switches on the heating.

Projects in Wearable Technology:

• Wearable Breathing Trainer: measuring and coaching for children with dysfunctional breathing patterns (starting january 2019)
  Financed by The Pioneers in Healthcare Innovation Fund 2018
  Tegether with Geke Ludden (UT) , Hellen van Rees (textile and fashion designer), Boony Thio (MST), Pascal Keijzer (MST), Jean Driezzen (ZGT), Eliza Bottenberg (Saxion).
  We will develop a robotic vest in a child design and equipped with suitable sensors and actuators, that will help children with, e.g., asthma to do breathing exercises at home.
• Weafing (starting january 2019)
  Weafing is a H2020 project  where textile actuators ("knitted muscles") are developed from electroactive polymer and processed into textiles. Goal is to develop garments that provide haptic stimulation. The application range is huge, ranging from navigation applications to stress reduction garments, from movement training for work, sports or wellness to extended experience in gaming.
  Coordinating and contributing to the WP on Perception.
  With Cedric Plesse, Edwin Jager, Nils-Krister Persson, Edwin Dertien, Jan van Erp, Martin van den Berg (elitac), Marius Janta (WT), and Marco Raaben.
  This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 825232
• Haptic Vest
  with Jan van Erp, Douwe Dresscher and Hellen van Rees funded internally, by the CTIT (Centre for Telematics and Information Technology, University of Twente)
  In this project a vest for haptic stimilation is develope, with exchangable modules each containing a rotational and a linear vibration motor, as well as a peltier element for heating or cooling. With this vest we are plan to investigate perception patterns on the body.
• Textile Reflexes 
  with Hellen van Rees and Geke Ludden
  funded by the Horizon2020 project WearSustain
  see also the wearable robotics website
  The basic idea of this project is to use fabric with mechanical properties developed by Hellen van Rees for robotic textile by actuating it. The application is a posture vest that detects slouching and gives feedback as a gentle reminder to get back into good posture. The feedback is generated by a contraction of the fabric at the lower back, that feels soft and friendly, like the hand of your yoga teacher, as a test person said. 

        -> textile reflexes at ars electronica 2019

Teaching

Current courses within Creative Technology

module 1: Programming with Processing (with A. Fehnker)
module 2: Programming and Physical Computing (with E. Dertien)
module 4: Algorithms in Creative Technology
module 6: Programming for Interaction (with A. Fehnker)
module 8: Hybrid Worlds (project)
pre-TOM: Creative Exploration of Art, Science and Technology (project)

within the master programme Interaction Technology:
Mastering Tinkering (with Edwin Dertien)

Past courses

Introduction to Computer Science
Programming with Structures
Real Time Systems 2
Distributed and Concurrent Programming
Codesign Project
Computer Architecture

Publications