-- KarlinBark - 26 April 2004
Research Notes:
What is the purpose of this project?

A common method of providing haptic feedback to users is using vibration. Video game joysticks, cellular phones and pagers, are all examples. However, vibration does not always provide the best feedback. I learned this personally while designing a haptic feedback method for my ME310 paper bike team. Our group decided to use pager motors to provide vibratory signals, but we quickly found out that the user became desensitized and numb from the vibrations after an extended period of time. It was easy to forget that any of the pager motors were on. So, Professor Cutkosky has decided to investigate other methods of providing an alert or haptic response. The goal of this project is to determine whether or not a constant haptic response, much like poking a person, can be provided, and whether or not that sort of feedback is useful for anything. Ideally, a small device that can be strapped to a person's arm would have a small dc motor embedded into it, which could activate an arm or lever or stylus to poke, stretch, pinch, or manipulate the person?s skin.

How?
- Slow adapting/fast adapting
Hardware
- What is it good for?
- How do you prove it? Evaluate it?

Do concurrent design documentation
- Update Trey's document
Tasks:
- Get everything set up on a different station
- Order parts
- Order servos used on iSprawl
- Order PIC 16F84A (free samples-microchip website)
- 4Mhz Crystal
- HC14 Inverter Chip
- 434 Trans/Rec
- Breadboards
- 9V battery + regulator?
- Battery charger for wireless
- Alter code for time delay
- Once it is built, describe system
- Range, power consumption, etc
- Experiment/testing (talk to Li for interface help)
- What should future versions be?
- Servos, RF transmitter/receiver, Lithium ion batteries?