Usually, when people go to a factory, they want to produce something that has been well-planned and has clear economic value. Instead, we wanted to bring the spirit of a lab to the factory: What if we could collaborate with its workers, directly prototyping and trying out ideas on the very machines that are used for production? What if curiosity were our only pressure point?

As a manufacturing hub, Shenzhen is one of the world’s highest concentrations of factories across many industries. This ecosystem gave us access to diverse knowledge, tools, and raw materials. Benefits would flow—not only from new academic research for publication but also from bringing prototyping closer to production in the ideation phase.

This project received Hong Kong Design Trust Feature Grant