Ode to Barelas: Supporting Youth Agency, Cultural Expression, and Community Engagement through an Interactive Mural

Community mural projects provide youth with the opportunity to learn new skills, have a voice, and deepen their connection to their communities. This pictorial reflects on a participatory community-based STEAM project in which a group of teenagers collaborated with a muralist (Author 2) and two interaction design researchers (Authors 1 and 5) to create an Interactive Mural—a traditional mural with embedded electronics. We analyzed students’ experience of agency, expression, and connection to community throughout the project. We discuss how large-scale community-centered projects that provide opportunities for student agency and expression are rich learning environments that can promote technological fluency.

Interactive Murals: New Opportunities for Collaborative STEAM Learning

This paper introduces interactive murals—artworks that combine longstanding traditions in community mural painting with ubiquitous computing—as new sites for collaborative STEAM learning. Using research-through-design and participatory design methods, we conducted an intensive spring and summer workshop in which high school students were introduced to electronics and programming through the process of creating an interactive mural. We describe the workshop activities, the mural design process, and the data collection and analysis methods. Through documenting student learning in programming and electronics and the collaboration that occurred, we build an argument for the novel learning affordances of interactive murals, emphasizing the unique opportunities that they provide for collaborative STEAM learning.

Characteristics of Conductive Paints and Tapes for Interactive Murals

This paper analyzes a collection of conductive paints and tapes. We describe and compare their electrical conductivity, durability, appearance, and cost. We investigate different means of connecting these materials to each other and other electronic components-including connection via solder, conductive epoxy, conductive adhesives, and metal mechanical fasteners. We explore different means of insulating and protecting materials and provide the results of a range of durability tests. The results are discussed in the context of the development of interactive murals-large outdoor interactive surfaces that are intended to function for years. We identify two conductive paints, CuPro-Cote and Silver/Copper Super Shield, and two conductive tapes, Copper and Tin that are highly conductive, stable across most of our testing conditions and, we believe, suitable for interactive murals.