HCI Seminar - Karthik Ramani - Hands, Bodies, and Machines: Reimagining Making and Learning Through Embodied Interaction

Abstract:
Across centuries, humans have learned and created through their hands and bodies—yet our computational tools have often abstracted away that embodied intelligence. My research reconnects the digital and the physical by designing systems where the body itself becomes the interface for authoring, learning, and fabrication.

In the first theme, embodied authoring, projects such as GhostAR, CaptuAR, and VipO transform programming into a physical act—users “program by demonstration” through gestures, movement, and spatial context rather than code. These systems enable intuitive human–robot collaboration and allow non-programmers to rapidly create context-aware AR applications by performing rather than scripting workflows. In the second theme, embodied learning, systems like avaTTAR and PoVRTool leverage augmented and virtual reality to cultivate precision and procedural skill. avaTTAR enables users to master sports skills such as table tennis through digital-twin coaching and real-time, spatially aligned feedback. PoVRTool extends this embodied feedback paradigm to high-precision manufacturing, where users engage with virtual power tools that replicate real-world dynamics, ergonomics, and safety conditions. In the third theme, embodied making, projects like GestuAR, Handymate, and AdapTutAR explore how embodied interfaces can guide complex fabrication and machine-interaction tasks. AdapTutAR investigates tutoring presence in machine workshops, where tasks often require spatially and body-coordinated human–machine interactions. 

Finally AgentAR unifies these authoring tools using tool augmented agents. Together, these projects advance a vision of computing through doing—where making, learning, and programming are not abstract symbolic processes but embodied, spatially grounded experiences that unify mind, body, and machine to democratize skill, creativity, and expertise. 

Bio:
Karthik Ramani is the Donald W. Feddersen Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University, with additional appointments in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a courtesy role in the College of Education. He leads the Convergence Design Lab, where his research brings AI into the physical world by blending human-centered AI with spatial intelligence to create immersive, real-time solutions for design, manufacturing, sports training, surgery, and hands-on learning. His work spans augmented spatial interactions, symbiotic human-AI collaboration, computational design thinking and prototyping, and scalable upskilling platforms for production. Using the lens of Physical AI, he develops systems that perceive, understand, and act in real environments—extending human capacity through embodied and intuitive interfaces. 

He has recently published in top-tier venues across computer vision (CVPR, ECCV, ICCV), human-computer interaction (ACM CHI, UIST), and AI (NIPS, ICLR), in addition to leading engineering design journals. He co-founded VizSeek, the world’s first commercial shape-based search engine for mechanical parts, and ZeroUI, a CES-awarded robotics startup. His educational innovations include Purdue’s Toy Design and Product-Process-Business Model Design courses. He was a visiting professor at Stanford University and Oxford University and a research fellow at PARC (formerly Xerox PARC). He earned his B.Tech from IIT Madras, M.S. from The Ohio State University, and Ph.D. from Stanford—all in Mechanical Engineering. He currently also serves as coach of Purdue’s Table Tennis team, where research meets passion— in the emerging domain of Athletic AI.

This talk will also be streamed over Zoom: https://mit.zoom.us/j/96684895383.