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Prairie Interfaces

Prairie Interfaces is a tactile, interactive map of one of North America’s most endangered ecosystems: The Texas Blackland Prairie. By interacting with the conductive areas of the map, users can fill a digital prairie landscapee with wildflowers. Prairie Interfaces addresses generational environmental amnesia by asking audiences how their hands may be involved in protecting and restoring threatened ecosystems.

This project explores tuft/shag/pile sensors, an under-researched method of e-textile construction. Specifically, I worked with a latch hook to build the tapestry stitch-by-stitch. By incorporating conductive threads into some of the stitches, several areas of the tapestry can sense touch. I worked with Arduino and Processing to create a visual program that reflects the duration and pressure of touch interactions.

Presentation

Maddie Olsen Prairie Interfaces Waag 2026 by Maddie Olsen

Video / Movie final project

Prairie Interfaces-final video by Maddie Olsen

Song is all these wires between us by Lucky Dragons downloaded from Free Music Archive. It has a CC-BY-NC-SA license.

Thesis PDF

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Download thesis here