Weightlifting Coach Will Nag You About Your Form…at Least Until The Batteries Run Dry

March 25, 2012 by Mike Nathan 8 Comments

haptic-exercise-coach

We always enjoy seeing what Electrical and Computer Engineering students dream up for their final projects, and though we must have missed this back in 2010 when it was published, [Bruce Land] dropped us a line to bring our attention to this cool Haptic Exercise Coach.

Designed and built by Cornell students [Michael Lyons] and [Greg Meess], the Haptic Exercise Coach is a small electrical circuit that helps individuals maintain proper form during bicep curls. The device uses accelerometers to monitor the user’s arm position and speed throughout the exercise, offering corrective feedback if it detects poor form. The device is driven by a Mega32 microcontroller which evaluates the data from the accelerometers, triggering one of six pager vibration motors to provide the feedback.

The pair says that the device can be used in athletic training to maximize workout time, or in muscle rehabilitation clinics where proper form can prevent reinjury.

Continue reading to see a video presentation of the device, and be sure to check out their project page for more details on how it was built.

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Tactile Computer Interface With Electromagnets

October 25, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 29 Comments

It’s not that touchscreen keyboards are horrible, but it’s nearly impossible to touch type on an iPad or other tablet keyboard. A team at the Media Computing Group at Aachen University figured out how to put a series of electromagnets underneath a display to provide haptic feedback for touchscreens. They showed off their tech at the 2011 UIST conference and made their paper available.

For the FingerFlux, as the team likes to call it, a bed of tiny electromagnets is placed underneath a panel display. The user wears a ‘thimble’ with an attached permanent magnet. Driving the bed of electromagnets slightly moves the magnet and provides a little bit of sensation to the user.

The FingerFlux can be used to provide haptic feedback like a keyboard. The system can also be used to model constraints – making sure that users don’t move outside the controls they operate, and can guide the user to the desired button.

A bed of electromagnets would be a welcome addition to tablets, if only to prevent typung luje rhus. Check out the demo of the FingerFlux after the break.

Thanks go to [John] for sending this one in.

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The Laser Guided Wheelchair

June 2, 2011 by Jeremy Cook 10 Comments

Using a scanning laser similar to those used in industrial safety systems, a new wheelchair developed by Sweden’s Luleå University of Technology allows those who are visually impaired to drive it without assistance. A driver is given haptic feedback as a navigation aid, reportedly similar to using a cane.

Although something like this is good in concept, this idea is already a working prototype. Doctoral student Daniel Innala Ahlmark (who is visually impaired himself) has already taken this wheelchair on a test run in his university’s busy Computer Science, Electrical, and Space Engineering Department. After this test run he remarked that he “felt safe like using a white cane.”

It’s really neat to see engineering and hacking skills put to use to help people who are impaired in some way (even cooler to see someone visually impaired helping with the process itself!). For more “hacks” related to helping people check out this brain controlled wheelchair, or this mobility device for kids.

Haptic Feedback For The Blind

December 17, 2010 by Chris Nelson 32 Comments

[polymythic] Is helping the blind see with his haptic feedback device called HALO. At the heart of the device is an Arduino Mega 2560 which senses objects with a few ultrasonic range finders and then relays the information back to the user using some vibration motors from old cell phones. The user can feel the distance by the frequency at which the motor pulses. The faster the motors pulse the closer an object is.

This kind of sensing is something that it can be applied to pretty much any sensor allowing the user to feel something that might be otherwise invisible. While haptic feedback is nothing new its good to see continuing work with new sensors and different setups.

Haptic Feedback Roundup

May 23, 2008 by Sean Percival 4 Comments

Haptic feedback (sometimes referred to as tactile or force feedback) offers what some might call a brave new world of interaction and immersion. The 1932 book of the same name was probably the first introduction many people got to the idea of computer generated touch sensations. In the book, movies are replaced with what are called “feelies”; patrons sit in chairs that provide feedback throughout the screening.

While we don’t see this coming to your local megaplex any time soon, we are starting to see the technology creep into our lives. After the break lets take a look at some examples, talk about projects we’ve covered before, and how you can get started developing your own.

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