Last week, the Computer Science HapTech Research Team worked to become one of four teams to make it to the U.S. finals round of the Microsoft Imagine Cup, a worldwide competition of technological innovations among student teams.
Seniors Lucian Copeland, Jordan Brooks and Alexander Matthers; juniors Morgan Sinko, Christian Freitas, Gary Ge and Minsoo Lee; and sophomores Kian Jones and Casey Waldren have been working in the field of haptics since the fall of 2013. Haptics is a field involving the science of touch, which can be modeled using a variety of sensors and other devices to cause vibrations, which in turn produces a feedback response. The team has been working on a major technological project they call HapTech, a virtual system that aims to combine sensing and feedback to facilitate the relationship between a person’s movement and the virtual response of a gaming system in order to create a lifelike and accurate portrayal of physical activity on a television screen.
HapTech was originally created as a competitive entry to the Intel-Cornell Cup competition, an intercollegiate event hosted by Intel in Florida for robotics and embedded systems teams across the United States.
Head of Hardware for the HapTech team Jordan Brooks said, “our system is a virtual- and augmented-reality suite that aims to change how we interact with data, virtual environments, and even each other by allowing free motion unbound by the range of a camera and providing haptic, or touch feedback, to its users.”
HapTech users wear a suit composed of gloves, elbow pads and a vest lined with tiny feedback actuators that allow a person’s physical movement to be detected and thus projected into a virtual world. Unlike other gaming systems that combine the physical and virtual worlds, HapTech may be sold at a relatively cheap price. It also combines sensing and feedback processes.
HapTech began through UR Robotics club, and has since evolved since to become perhaps one of the most prestigious and advanced technological endeavors UR students have ever taken on. The team, advised by professor of Computer Science Randal Nelson, and led by Sinko, is currently in the process of constructing and polishing their current model, as well as looking for a media supervisor to manage their digital presence.
The project, initially a pair of gloves and a basic motion sensor television set, has expanded to include full upper body coverage, providing kinetic feedback to the chest and arms, as well as high resolution service to the hands.
For the future, the HapTech team “envisions a dramatic expansion of their product line to capitalize on the current lack of competition in the virtual reality market. To hit as many potential markets as possible, this lineup will include a stripped-down version for computer users such as digital sculptors and CAD designers, an exo-skeleton model for gamers that will include impact simulation through weight shifts, and a low-impact athletic model for fitness users.”
Sinko said, “The team is very hopeful for the future of virtual reality, and looks forward to establishing HapTech’s place in this exciting and innovative marketplace.”
Kaplan is a member of
the class of 2018.
