Haptic Education

Our study has focused mainly on the Novint Falcon Haptic Devices. From Wikipedia: “In June 2007, Novint Technologies, Inc. introduced the first affordable, high-fidelity 3D Touch (haptic) game controller. The Novint Falcon replaces a mouse or joystick and lets users feel realistic game interactions, objects, environments, and force feedback in enabled games.”

How it Works

The Novint Falcon is a pointing device with three arms coming out of the main body of the device. Each arm is capable of pulling and pushing and is updated every 1/1000 of second. In addition to the arms there is an interchangeable handgrip with three programmable buttons on it.

Although difficult to find when they were first released you can now find them at most large electronics retailers for $150-$250.

Modes

The haptic device has three different emulation modes: passive, active, and mixed mode. The passive mode stops the haptic hand grip when it encounters a digital solid object. This could be anything from wall, to a spherical ball.

The active mode will pull and push the handgrip, adding resistance or assistance depending on the object encountered. If a ball is thrown and you catch it with the haptic device it may push the handgrip out simulating a catch. If you get to close to a magnetic surface it may pull the handgrip in.

Most commonly the haptic device will function in a mixture of both active and passive resistance. This allows the simulation of liquids and specialized textures. One can create bumpy surfaces that pull you into valleys and push the hand grip to hill tops. One can also increase the resistance of the hand grip, but still allow passage through objects to stimulate heavy liquids like molasses.