Passive Haptic Learning

During my Master’s, I worked at the Contextual Computing Group at Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing. Under the advisement of Thad Starner, I worked on the passive haptic learning project.

Passive haptic learning is based on the idea that individuals can learn movements with little effort through a series of vibrotactile instructional cues. The application of this method that I worked on was learning the piano. This relies on using a pair of vibrotactile gloves (gloves with haptic motors located just above the knuckle), to apply cues to the fingers based on the actual fingerings of a song. Currently, our research efforts have been focused on studying the idea of passive haptic reheresal, where passive haptic learning is used in tandem with active learning (traditional piano learning methods), to further increase retention and acquistion of piano skills.

My specific contributions to the project are with both the firmware and hardware parts of the project.

In terms of hardware, I was involved with the assembly, debug, and design of a new system. I have been able to assembly and debug the version of haptic gloves used in current user studies. I have also extensively worked on creating a new design of the gloves, including designing a revised version of the PCB, creating a flex PCB to replace motor wiring, and helping craft the overall design of the glove (including material, accessibility, and durability).

In terms of firmware, I have programmed the gloves from the ground up, including setting up Bluetooth LE connections between the gloves and with a tablet and translating fingering patterns into actual haptic cues.

Since graduation, I have taken an advisory role on the project, helping out and reviewing hardware designs and helping develop the firmware architecture for the new hardware design.

I had the opportunity to present some of this work at the UbiComp/ISWC 2022 conference in Atlanta, GA as part of the Poster/Demo track. If you are interested in learning more about this system, you can view the demo submission video here, and read the demo proposal paper here.