Projects Category: Research

In the results of the previous study, we noticed that the intensity of vibration received appeared to affect subjects’ reaction times. I was intrigued by this and wanted to conduct a study to determine if this was true, and also explore how adding other types (auditory and visual) of stimuli would affect reaction time. I took full ownership of designing this study. I personally conducted a literature review, finding that the proposed aim was indeed novel and of interest to the haptics community. I modified the app I had created for the previous study on distraction to now provide combinations of visual, auditory and haptic stimuli. We found that higher intensities of stimuli and additions of stimuli both decrease reaction times. Interestingly, subjects tended to prefer lower-intensity stimuli. This paper informs design of human-computer interactions, especially in systems that seek to reduce reaction times. I am also the co-first author on this paper, and it was presented at the 2023 World Haptics Conference.

Haptics is the study of communicating information via the human sense of touch. Haptic stimuli are used in a variety of real-world scenarios, such as through collision-avoidance systems in cars, in robotic surgery, or through video game controllers. In all of these scenarios, the stimuli are provided while the user is distracted. By better understanding how people respond to haptic stimuli while distracted, lab-developed haptic devices can be better adapted for real-world applications. We used a smartphone as the platform for this study. We aimed to prove smartphones can be used as a reliable base for haptics studies. Using smartphones to run studies could open up haptic studies to a much larger, and more diverse population.

Inspired by a lunchtime conversation with a friend who is blind, I designed and built a wearable “bracelet” that could tell a user where north is. Using this, a blind person could passively get orientation directions to navigate a new environment. 

I tested this device with my blind friend. I led him around a patch of grass in the shade (a particularly hard environment to get orientation in) until he lost his sense of orientation. He then used my device to navigate back to where we started.

I’m currently working on miniaturizing my device and making it more ergonomic.