Can You Ink While You Blink? Assessing Mental Effort in a Sensor-Based Calligraphy Trainer

Sensors can monitor physical attributes and record multimodal data in order to provide feedback. The application calligraphy trainer, exploits these affordances in the context of handwriting learning. It records the expert’s handwriting performance to compute an expert model. The application then uses the expert model to provide guidance and feedback to the learners. However, new learners can be overwhelmed by the feedback as handwriting learning is a tedious task. This paper presents the pilot study done with the calligraphy trainer to evaluate the mental effort induced by various types of feedback provided by the application. Ten participants, five in the control group and five in the treatment group, who were Ph.D. students in the technology-enhanced learning domain, took part in the study. The participants used the application to learn three characters from the Devanagari script. The results show higher mental effort in the treatment group when all types of feedback are provided simultaneously. The mental efforts for individual feedback were similar to the control group. In conclusion, the feedback provided by the calligraphy trainer does not impose high mental effort and, therefore, the design considerations of the calligraphy trainer can be insightful for multimodal feedback designers

Scalability of the Size of Patterns Drawn Using Tactile Hand Guidance

Haptic feedback for handwriting training has been extensively studied, but with primary focus on kinematic feedback. We provide vibrotactile feedback through a wrist worn sleeve to guide the user to recreate unknown patterns and study the impact of vibrational duration (1, 2, 3 seconds) on pattern scaling. User traces a line at 90° angles, while attempting to maintain a constant speed, in the direction of the motor activated till a different motor activation is perceived. Shape and size are two features of good letter formation. Study performed on three subjects showed the ability to utilize four vibrotactile motors to guide the hand towards correct shape formation with high accuracy (\u3e 95%). The overall size of the letter was observed to scale linearly with the vibrational duration. Implications for utilizing the vibrational feedback for handwriting correction are discussed

Sensitive Calligraphy Robot & Design Review Creation

The calligraphy robot is a proof-of-concept platform for a high precision combined control system with position and force control. The platform is a gantry system and an end-effector with series elastic actuators. PVT control was utilized to achieve smooth curves without noticeable shaking or jagged lines. This design has potential implications for surgical robots. The Cornell Cup competition required design reviews to mimic a professional engineering process. However, there is a lack of helpful guides to critically approaching the creation of a design review. The Cornell Cup reviews are the analytical basis for a study of choices made during creation and the forces that influence those choices which culminated in a handout guide to help other students improve their design reviews

Handwriting Correction System using Wearable Sleeve with Optimal Tactor Configuration

Handwriting remains an elusive skill with practice worksheets being the common method of learning. Since these worksheets provide only visual feedback and no quantitative feedback, it can often be a challenge to improve. For children with learning disabilities, learning handwriting skills is one of the most difficult tasks. We propose a handwriting training system that uses off-the-shelf webcam, a pen tracking software and a haptic sleeve which provides active feedback to the user based on their deviation from the original pattern. The sleeve has 4 individual motors that vibrate at different intensities based on the direction (right, left, up or down) and severity of the deviation (\u3c 1cm, 1cm – 3cm, \u3e 3cm). Different motor placements around the forearm are evaluated for vibro-tactile feedback accuracy and time response, and a novel spaced-ring configuration is proposed. This paper provides details on the system architecture and sleeve characterization, and the results show promise in utilizing the system for self-correction and visual-motor skills development. The results from sleeve characterization suggest the applicability of the spaced-ring configuration (perceived feedback accuracy \u3e 98%, time response \u3c 1s) in other vibrotactile hand guidance systems, in addition to handwriting correction. Recommendations on tactor placements around the forearm are provided

Teaching Calligraphy in a Modern Way

Calligraphy can be defined as the art of handwriting or as the design of beautiful letters with writing instruments. Apart from beautifully executing the letters, one must also make sure to arrange them properly and eventually contribute to a well-implemented aesthetic page. When the printing press was invented, typographic characters were born from calligraphy. Graphic design is based on three important categories: image, illustration and typography. One of the most important characteristics of a graphic designer is to find and to use beautiful type characters and arrange them well. We believe that a full knowledge of their historical evolution, anatomy and methods of writing, is a very important element for the development of a good designer. The use of computers and the development of technology in general has resulted in a lack of interest in handwriting. Moreover, the excessive use of ready fonts caused people to forget manually designed fonts. To recapture this knowledge that has been slowly forgotten, it is necessary to learn calligraphy especially if one actively practices graphic design and uses writing instruments. This project (Appendix D) aims to introduce a practical guide with a modern look enabling beginners and especially graphic design students and type designers to fully and easily understand the foundations of classic calligraphy. Rather than complex explanations, eye-catching sentences with keywords and clear illustrations are provided throughout the project, so that everyone, even beginners can comfortably learn the principles of calligraphy. Moreover, the fundamental calligraphic content is presented through practice and exercises along with the required theoretical background. Another important aspect is that great effort has been given to defining rules based on reliable sources since the beginner needs dogmatic norms rather than ambiguous expressions. The calligraphic hand covered in this study is Edward Johnston’s model – ‘Foundational Hand’. At the end of the 19th century there were scarcely any font designers who mastered broad-edge calligraphy. Consequently, existing fonts were quite far from being aesthetic. However, in the early 20th century, calligraphy flourished again through the works of Edward Johnston — the man who is regarded as the father of broad edge calligraphy. Johnston developed the ‘Foundational Hand’ model by classifying the letters according to their geometric similarity and therefore revolutionized the way of learning calligraphy. Johnston designed new fonts, which were an inspiration for other contemporary fonts and works that led to a new stage in typography. One of the most important examples of this transition is Gill Sans typeface, designed by Eric Gill, a student of Edward Johnston. ‘Foundational Hand’ is an upright round-hand like roman miniscule, which has been used for a long time as book-hand. Moreover, if a roman miniscule is taught firstly, the understanding of other hands such as italic, gothic and copperplate will be much easier. For these reasons, ‘Foundational Hand’ is covered elaborately in our study. Materials are a very important part of calligraphy books. As such, the first part of this study covers in detail materials used in calligraphy. The main materials used in calligraphy are pen, ink and paper. In addition, a desk and a board to write on are necessary as well. As simplicity is a key to a better understanding, only the necessary information about all of these elements is provided in this chapter. After explaining the materials used in calligraphy, the next chapter deals with letters and their basic structure, known as skeletal proportions. A type designer or a calligrapher understanding the skeletal proportion is as important as a doctor understanding the human skeleton. Through the skeletal proportions, the shape, proportion and relationship of the letters can be easily seen and compared. A profound understanding of this basis, allows the calligrapher to understand and design more complex letter systems and alphabets. Classification of letters, which is an important study, is covered in a separate section. A good classification helps the student to distinguish the different forms and compare them. Learning and practising the letter forms group-wise is obviously easier than learning them letter by letter. There is no common accepted classification of foundational hand alphabet, hence this study aims at making a clear classification of the letters as well. The miniscule letters are grouped according to their relationship with the key letter o and also to their letter-widths. On the other hand, the capital letters are classified into four groups, according to their letter-widths. Before explaining writing with broad edge nib, some issues, that have to be taken into account were presented such as: starting to write with a wider nib, making the necessary adjustment to the metal-nib-pen, and handling the problem of rate of ink-flow. After a short demonstration of the skeletal proportion of letters, teaching writing with broad edge pen – the main objective of this work – was the next focus. In this work, some methods which help teaching calligraphy with a broad edge pen, were implemented. One method is showing the letters on a grid with divisions. The basic grid is divided into four divisions for the lowercase letters, six divisions for the capital letters, and all the letters were shown on it. Each division corresponds to one nib-width, which is related to the height of the letters. The other method is ‘coloured two-pencil method’, which is used in the project to show the ductus. The ductus is the set of sequences and directions of the strokes of the letters, and it is an important detail, especially for the beginners. In this work, the ductus has been explained through a new approach called ‘coloured two-pencil method’. Even spacing between letters is very essential for calligraphy, and sometimes perhaps more important than beautifully drawn separate letters. Hence, a separate section is dedicated to this topic. There is no specific rule for even spacing. Some letters have unique letter shapes. As a result, spacing problems may occur, such as in the letters with open ending or beginning, known as open letters. This study addresses these spacing problems as well. Finally, the last chapter covers the other important design and spacing topics such as page spacing (margins), and line spacing. With the help of this chapter the student who has already a good understanding about calligraphy can fulfil a complete work or a calligraphic project. The project of this thesis is tested and validated by various masters of calligraphy, and active users, such as students of architecture and design, through a workshop. Through this project a better system for learning calligraphy was obtained. This system is specifically designed for graphic design students and type designer

Spartan Daily, March 3, 1981

Volume 76, Issue 25https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/6729/thumbnail.jp

Spartan Daily, March 3, 1981

Volume 76, Issue 25https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/6729/thumbnail.jp

Spartan Daily, March 3, 1981

Volume 76, Issue 25https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/6729/thumbnail.jp

Spartan Daily, March 2, 1993

Volume 100, Issue 22https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/8380/thumbnail.jp