This one-day workshop invites participants to explore hybrid scientific and maker collaboration through the lens of remote physical prototyping. Using Design Fiction, they will imagine speculative but grounded scenarios where interdisciplinary teams’ prototype together across distance.

Participants will co-create fictional quick start guides as tangible storytelling artifacts, envisioning future tools, workflows, and hybrid setups. While inspired by ubiquitous computing, the workshop is open to any technology that could enable distributed prototyping—low- or high-tech.

The format is based on three parallel groups of about five people each, with each group exploring a single scenario—allowing for up to three different scenarios and around 15 participants in total. The workshop brings together CERN researchers, Swiss academic makerspaces, FabLab members, and students to jointly explore hybrid collaboration models.

Methodology

Participants will follow a research-through-design process, adapted to scientific and maker prototyping:

• Immersive start: walkthrough introduction to IDEASquare and Design Fiction practices
• Scenario exploration: guided prompts from real-world observations and speculative user stories
• Co-creation: group-based narrative prototyping (quick-start guides)
• Collective reflection: final exhibit and discussion on emerging forms of distributed fabrication

Participant Roles

Each interdisciplinary group reflects the diversity of IDEASquare and the Swiss academic/maker environment:

• Scientist/Researcher (CERN or academic) – Brings research context and scientific needs
• Engineer/Technologist – Contributes technical knowledge on tools and constraints
• Maker/Prototyping Specialist – Translates ideas into tangible diegetic artifacts
• STS or Design Researcher – Adds perspective on collaboration and sociotechnical systems
• Student Participant – Offers fresh, creative outsider insight (e.g., UNIGE hackathon option)
• Storyteller/Documentarian – Captures and communicates the process for wider dissemination

Expected Outcomes

• Fictional design artifacts (quick-start guides) envisioning hybrid collaboration and distributed prototyping across CERN, academia, and makerspaces
• A hands-on Design Fiction experience embedded within IDEASquare, enriching its methodological repertoire while being accessible to external collaborators
• Contribution to IDEASquare’s mission as a testbed for CERN, by engaging staff, students, and makers in speculative design processes grounded in real collaboration challenges
• Strengthened ties between CERN and the Swiss academic/maker networks, creating opportunities for future co-creation, distributed prototyping, and cross-institutional learning

Directions on how to get to CERN you can find here: https://home.cern/directions

When on CERN site, find your way to the Science Gateway visitor car park, behind the Globe. IdeaSquare is there, towards West (France). Google map is here.

For registering your laptop/mobile phone for wifi access at CERN, please connect to the CERN visitor wifi. You will receive a code as a text message. Your connection will be valid for a week. You will need to register each device separately.