Unveiling The Haptics Club's Top 4 Most Listened-To Episodes

Haptics Club with Christian Lenz and Max Schwarz, two PhD students and members of team Nimbro, the winning team of the AVATAR Xprize competition. We will talk about robotic avatars, their development process and the achievement that won them the competition.

In this episode of the Haptics Club, we talk with Hong Z. Tan. Tan is a renowned haptics scientist at Google, known for her research on perception-based haptic interfaces. With a background in biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and MIT, respectively, Hong has also had extensive industry experience, including a stint at Microsoft Research Asia. She is a Fellow of IEEE for her contributions to wearable haptics and holds concurrent appointments at Purdue University in the fields of Electrical Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Psychological Sciences.

Touch and art may not commonly be associated, and neither are engineering and art, but these are precisely the topics that fuel my passion when creating my pieces. My interest in touch was sparked by a profound moment when I watched a video of visually-impaired children experiencing classical marble sculptures in a tactile museum in Greece. Their embodied encounter with the cold and chiselled torsos created a deeply sensuous experience that seemed absent in much of contemporary art. This sparked my curiosity to explore the effects of physical contact with different materials and structures at a sensory level. My research then delved into interpersonal connections, taboos, and emotional transferability through lifeless material. I experimented with (digital or simulated) touch, using the act of touch as a catalyst for introspection and transformation. Through my art, I aim to prompt audiences to reconsider touch as a forgotten aspect of art and a powerful means of communication, which has not been adequately considered as a valid sense for aesthetic experience compared, for example, to audio-visual input.

The "interACTIVE HAPTICS Conference (IAHC)" took place on June 14th and 15th in the beautiful city of Hamburg. Over 100 individuals from the haptic industry, including researchers, gathered for a two-day conference organized by Grewus GmbH. The event aimed to foster a detailed exchange of the latest haptic technologies and trends. Attendees represented various technical backgrounds, such as component manufacturers, system integrators, and OEMs. The industries present were evenly distributed among consumer electronics, automotive, and professional entertainment. The conference also welcomed research institutions and enablers, creating a diverse mix of interests. This gathering highlighted two key points: haptic technology is a relevant and impactful aspect of customer experience across multiple domains, and there is still much to learn and align on in this field.

An incoming email used to be a brash shout – "You've Got Mail". These days, it's a soft chime, or more likely a simple buzz on our phone. Great deals of effort go into the vibrations of notifications. Designers try to find ways to communicate content, context, urgency, and much more into a simple set of pulses and vibes. But only so much information can easily fit into a haptic pattern – at a certain point you're just recreating morse code. So how do we create a good vibrotactile language? How do we create intuitive, interpretable messaging that can be understood through the low bandwidth of our skin?

Professor Vincent Hayward, affectionately known as the "Godfather of Haptics," passed away at 68. Vincent (1955-2023) was a luminous mind, remarkable scholar, and esteemed community member. We all live in the shadow of his exceptional intellect, passion for teaching, and unwavering commitment to his research. Vincent inspired so many, touching the lives of numerous friends, colleagues, and trainees, leaving a lasting legacy that continues to resonate within the scientific community.

In this episode of the Haptics Club, we were joined by Craig Douglass, co-founder and CEO of Contact CI. His company is developing a different type of force feedback glove based on bioinspired control methods of resistive force feedback. In this episode, we talk about gloves, haptics, and challenges in hardware development. Let’s get right into it!

In this episode, we sit down with Danny Grant, a technology visionary who has a proven record of innovation and a passion for building a better future. For over 20 years Danny was Innovation Program Director at Immersion Corp, while currently, he is founding partner and CTO at Innovobot. We sat down with Danny to talk haptics, innovation and challenges when it comes to pushing novel tech.