student design competition

important dates

The TEI 2027 Student Design Competition (SDC) is a juried track that invites students to explore new ideas at the intersection of technology, design, and the body. Through interactive prototypes, speculative artifacts, and creative interventions, students present their visions for the future of tangible and embodied interaction.

Unlike traditional research papers, SDC submissions can emerge from course projects, early-stage concepts, or speculative explorations, making it an ideal venue for students to contribute to the TEI community, regardless of academic background or research experience.

why submit to the sdc

The Student Design Competition is a unique opportunity to share your ideas, build your portfolio, and connect with the international HCI community: no matter where you are in your academic journey.

Whether you're in high school, undergrad, a master's program, or just beginning your PhD research path, SDC welcomes early-stage, course-based, or exploratory projects. Think of it as a "junior doctoral consortium": a place to get feedback, showcase your creativity, and begin building a long-term presence at TEI and in HCI.

To mark the 21st TEI annual conference, we're working to make SDC more welcoming, especially for undergraduate and master's students. If you've ever wanted to contribute to TEI, this is your chance to get started.

theme: traces

This year's Student Design Competition invites submissions on the theme of Traces: exploring how a body and the places it inhabits imprint themselves on each other, and how tangible design can gather, sense, or interpret whatever is left behind once the body has gone.

Movement leaves residue. Fingertips wear a groove into a handrail after years of gripping. A doorway remembers height in the smudges at shoulder level. A phone quietly stores the shape of a morning walk long after the walk dissolves from memory. What lingers is never the moment itself, only its echo, and something is always lost in the gap between the two. That loss is the material we ask you to work with. These might include, but are not limited to:

• Objects that receive a gesture, a lean, or a footstep and hold it as something a later hand can find
• Wearables that keep the sediment of a journey, the fatigue of a climb, the shape of a habit the body has settled into
• Materials that soften, darken, or deform with handling, so that use itself becomes a kind of record
• Spatial and locative pieces that reveal the faint paths bodies wear into a place nobody thinks to notice
• Designs that let one person meet the mark of another, someone distant, departed, or no longer here at all

We encourage you to consider how design and sensation might give weight to absence, to attend to what a place quietly keeps of the people who passed through it, or to let the body feel how a space has reshaped it in return. What survives once presence ends? How can a tangible, sensory encounter carry that forward?

Whether subtle or speculative, practical or poetic, scientific or aesthetic, we look forward to how your ideas answer this year's theme.

notification of intent (optional)

If you're considering submitting and want a first round of informal feedback, we encourage you to send us an optional notification of intent via email to sdc_27@tei.acm.org from August 3 to October 16, 2026. Teams who do so will receive one round of feedback from the SDC chairs within two weeks, giving teams time to refine their ideas before the final deadline.

Note: Notifications of intent are non-binding, they simply help you get early input on your direction.

eligibility and guidelines

The Student Design Competition is open to students at all academic levels, including high school, undergraduate, master's, and PhD. Further:

• Teams may include up to 5 student members
• Only students may be listed as authors or team members. Faculty advisors, postdocs, and mentors may be acknowledged in the paper's "Acknowledgements" section, but they cannot be co-authors
• There is no limit to the number of teams that may enter from the same school or university

This challenge is designed to support student-led ideas and collaboration. Whether you're just starting out or nearing the end of your degree, we encourage you to submit!

submission details

To keep the Student Design Competition accessible and student-friendly, submissions consist of a short paper only (i.e., there's no need for a full-length research article).

What to submit

• A 2-4 page paper (excluding references), using the ACM Master Article Submission Template (single or double column). We recommend Zotero for managing your references
• Submit your paper via the PCS Submission System
• Submissions to the SDC must be original and must not be simultaneously submitted to other conferences, journals, or other tracks of TEI 2027

Note: Longer papers are not necessarily better. A focused, well-communicated 2-page submission is just as welcome as a 4-page one. We're looking for clarity, creativity, and connection to the theme: not length for its own sake.

What to include

• A clear description of your idea, its motivation, and how it might be used
• A brief explanation of how your project relates to the SDC 2027 theme
• Visuals, sketches, diagrams, or pictures to help explain your concept
• An "Acknowledgements" section to credit anyone outside the team who supported the project (e.g., instructors, advisors, or peers). Please also include a brief declaration of the use of AI tools for conducting research, specifying how they were used (e.g., study design, data collection, coding) and to what extent. Please carefully review the May 2026 ACM Policy on Authorship before you use AI tools. This transparency helps uphold academic integrity and supports fair evaluation
• Full author names, affiliations, and contact information. Submissions are not anonymous

Don't worry about writing a perfect academic paper. Focus on communicating your idea clearly and creatively: that's what matters most.

examples of past projects

• Instant Tattoo Camera: Towards a New Photographic Conviviality. Chinatsu Ozawa. 2026. Solo Master's team
• Wish You Were Here: Psychological and Sensory First Aid for Invisible Emergencies in Trauma and Neurodiversity. Yeonhee Choi. 2026
• TILO: Designing Soft Kinetic Cues for Embodied Biofeedback. Songah Seo, Jiyeon Lee, Kyeongmin Ha, Sungbeen Lee, and Seok Young Hwang. 2026. Master's team
• Magic Tag. Carla Griggio, Germán Leiva, Olivier Perret, Víctor Valle Juarranz. 2014. Master's & Undergrad team (Jury Award, Best Show Award)
• Redycler: Daily Outfit Texture Fabrication Appliance Using Re-Programmable Dyes. Ritik Batra and Kaitlyn Yi Ran Lee. 2022. Undergrad team (Best Motivation Scenario Award)
• Morphess. Consuelo Valdes, Heidi Wang, Taili Feng, Annie Wang. 2011. Undergrad team
• The Tissue Fabricator. Caron Thomas, Alina Koshy, Anusha Samal, Anahad Kaur Hanspal. 2022. High school team
• WonderMap: Capturing and Connecting the Edges of Cultures. Tianqin Lu, Anniek Jansen, Sichen Guo, François Leborgne. 2024. Master's & PhD team
• Behave-Knit: Sustainable Integration of Pneumatic Actuators in Knitted Wearables. Lingxiao Luo. 2025. Solo PhD team

funding

This track does not provide travel funding. However, students are encouraged to independently apply for the Gary Marsden Travel Award, which is open to all students regardless of whether they submit to the Student Design Challenge. Please note that the travel award has its own application process and deadlines, which may occur before the SDC submission deadline. Be sure to read the Gary Marsden Travel Award page carefully and apply early if needed.

awards

A limited number of submissions will be recognized for their outstanding quality and contribution to student design. One project will receive the Best Student Design Award, and one additional project may be selected for an Honorable Mention, at the discretion of the SDC chairs.

selection and post-acceptance process

All submissions will undergo a juried review process conducted by the Student Design Competition chairs. Confidentiality will be maintained throughout the evaluation process.

Submissions must be original and not under consideration for any other conference, journal, or track at TEI 2027. Submissions that are not accepted will be kept strictly confidential and will not be disclosed or published.

Authors of accepted papers will receive detailed instructions for preparing and submitting the final version by the camera-ready deadline (November 25). Submissions that do not meet these requirements by the deadline may be removed from the program.

The camera-ready version of the work must follow the official ACM publication templates (LaTeX or Word).

Accepted papers will be published in the ACM Digital Library as an Extended Abstract. The publication-ready paper is the only material included in the ACM Digital Library. Teams must submit the publication-ready paper to both TAPS and PCS by the same deadline, November 25, 2026, AoE. In addition to the publication-ready paper, each team will be required to:

• Submit a 1-minute video explaining the project via PCS by January 5, 2027 (AoE) - a narrated slide or simple walkthrough is fine. This video will be used only for the Student Design Competition and will not be archived in the ACM Digital Library.
• Present the project in person at TEI 2027 as part of the SDC session (January 26)
• This can be achieved via a poster, physical prototype, interactive artifact, or demo. This can be a speculative object or a mockup (i.e., full functionality is not required)

At least one team member must register for and attend the TEI 2027 conference. If needed, the ACM can provide visa support letters for authors of accepted Student Design Competition submissions, as well as for all registered attendees. Please reach out to the General chairs at general_27@tei.acm.org to request a letter.

Accepted SDC projects will be published in the ACM Digital Library as an Extended Abstract, which are considered semi-archival. This means that your project can still evolve into a full-length paper in the future without issue, as long as substantial new work is presented. Participating in the SDC won't prevent you from developing your ideas further for future publication.

optional social gathering

To help foster community and connection among SDC participants, we are planning an informal social event for the selected teams. More information will be shared following acceptance.

sdc chairs

Chang Xiao, Boston University
Maurício Sousa, Keio University
Andreia Valente, University of Auckland

For further questions, please contact the Student Design Competition chairs at sdc_27@tei.acm.org