Expanding Haptic Workspace for Coupled-Object Manipulation

Haptic force-feedback offers a valuable cue in exploration and manipulation of virtual environments. However, grounding of many commercial kinesthetic haptic devices limits the workspace accessible using a purely position-control scheme. The bubble technique has been recently presented as a method for expanding the user’s haptic workspace. The bubble technique is a hybrid position-rate control system in which a volume, or “bubble,” is defined entirely within the physical workspace of the haptic device. When the device’s end effector is within this bubble, interaction is through position control. When exiting this volume, an elastic restoring force is rendered, and a rate is applied that moves the virtual accessible workspace. Existing work on the bubble technique focuses on point-based touching tasks. When the bubble technique is applied to simulations where the user is grasping virtual objects with part-part collision detection, unforeseen interaction problems surface. This paper discusses three details of the user experience of coupled-object manipulation with the bubble technique. A few preliminary methods of addressing these interaction challenges are introduced

Interacting With Grasped Objects in Expanded Haptic Workspaces Using the Bubble Technique

Haptic force-feedback can provide useful cues to users of virtual environments. Body-based haptic devices are portable but the more commonly used ground-based devices have workspaces that are limited by their physical grounding to a single base position and their operation as purely position-control devices. The “bubble technique” has recently been presented as one method of expanding a user\u27s haptic workspace. The bubble technique is a hybrid position-rate control system in which a volume, or “bubble,” is defined entirely within the physical workspace of the haptic device. When the device\u27s end effector is within this bubble, interaction is through position control. When the end effector moves outside this volume, an elastic restoring force is rendered, and a rate is applied that moves the virtual accessible workspace. Publications have described the use of the bubble technique for point-based touching tasks. However, when this technique is applied to simulations where the user is grasping virtual objects with part-to-part collision detection, unforeseen interaction problems surface. Methods of addressing these challenges are introduced, along with discussion of their implementation and an informal investigation

Chautauqua in Devils Lake, North Dakota: An Historical Study of the Organization, the Facilities, and Programs

Chautauqua, a totally American institution which impacted nearly forty million people in its approximately fifty-year existence from 1874 to 1930, was a place to enrich lives through education, inspiration, and recreation. Devils Lake, North Dakota, a small, isolated town on the Midwestern plains, located on the shores of a large, salt-water lake, became the site of the nation\u27s third largest independent Chautauqua in the nation, operating from 1893 to 1929. This thesis is a study of the history of the Devils Lake Chautauqua, its organization, and development. Included in the research is a study of the national Chautauqua and Lyceum Movements, how those movements became intertwined, and how the two movements impacted the Chautauqua in Devils Lake. The history of the Chautauqua includes a discussion of the facilities and activities at the Devils Lake site, includ ing the Chautauqua Railroad and Captain S. E. Heerman and his steamship, the Minnie H, two activities that made the Devils Lake Chautauqua unique. An analysis of the programming, the themes and quality, is also provided. The demise of the Devils Lake Chautauqua and the subsequent revival in 1976 are also discussed. Two tables list and categorize the programs by type: religious, political, educational/inspirational, musical, elocution and drama, and other miscellaneous types. One of the two tables covers the first five years of programming; the second covers the last four years for which complete programming information is available. Maps of the Chautauqua grounds are included, as is a copy of the speech given by William Jennings Bryan on July 6, 1918, the most famous speaker ever booked at the Devils Lake Chautauqua. Two typical stories used by teachers at the Kindergarten are also provided, as well as several illustrations of the facilities and typical activities

Still Too Fat to Fight

The problem of junk food sold in schools is not just a national health issue. It is a national security issue.Over the past 40 years, obesity rates have more than tripled for children and teens. About 1 in 4 young American adults is now too overweight to join the military. Being overweight or obese is the number one medical reason why young adults cannot enlist. When weight problems are combined with poor education, criminal backgrounds, and other disqualifiers, an estimated 75 percent of young Americans could not serve in the military if they wanted to

Comparison of Single-Wall Versus Multi-Wall Immersive Environments to Support a Virtual Shopping Experience

With the proliferation of large screen stereo display systems, major consumer product manufacturers are using this technology to test marketing ideas on consumers. One of the performance factors that is of interest to retailers or manufacturers of retail products is the ability of consumers to quickly and easily locate their products within a retail store. Virtual reality technology can be used to create a virtual store that is easily reconfigurable as a test environment for consumer feedback. The research presented in this paper involves a study that compares the use of a multi-wall immersive environment to a single-wall immersive environment. Users were given a list of products to find in the virtual store. A physical mockup of a shopping cart was created and instrumented in order to be used to navigate throughout the virtual store. The findings indicate that participants in the five-wall immersive environment were significantly faster in locating the objects than the participants using the one-wall immersive environment. In addition, participants in the five-wall condition reported that the shopping cart was easier to use than in the one-wall condition. This study indicates that the use of multiple walls to provide an increased sense of immersion improves the ability of consumers to locate items within a virtual shopping experience

GOALI: A Hybrid Method to Support Natural Interaction of Parts in a Virtual Environment

The overall goal of this research is to improve the design of assembly methods through the use of virtual reality (VR) and haptics (force feedback). The research is focused on two critical aspects: the development of methods for simulating natural part-to-part interaction to support the human-centric approach to concurrent design and the evaluation of these methods in a manufacturing design context. As part of the research, we have developed the SPARTA software platform, explored new VR interaction methods and conducted several site visits at Deere facilities to better understand their processes and operations. This paper summarizes the efforts and results to date

Faculty Recital: Doug Lindsey and Friends

KSU School of Music presents Doug Lindsey and Friends.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/musicprograms/1148/thumbnail.jp