GoodIT brings together researchers and educators working at the intersection of technology and societal challenges. This year’s conference took place on 2-4 September 2026 at the University of Pisa.
Lin presented the work-in-progress paper “Sensing Stress Through Play: A Multimodal Pilot with Wearable Insights.” The study addresses a persistent challenge in stress research: physiological signals can indicate changes in the body, but they do not necessarily explain what a stressful experience means to an individual or the context in which it occurs.
To explore this gap, the study combines wearable sensing and self-reported experiences with LEGO® Serious Play®, using LEGO model building and storytelling as a participatory way for people to express how they experience and make sense of stress and coping. The approach brings together physiological measurements with participants’ own interpretations of their experiences, offering a playful but structured way to investigate stress beyond sensor data alone.
The research is currently continuing through a series of data-collection workshops. The next stage will examine how participants’ LEGO models, narratives, subjective experiences, and physiological responses can jointly contribute to a more contextual and human-centered understanding of stress.
Stay tuned for the upcoming findings, and more LEGO-built perspectives on what stress can look like.
