Haptics technology in Educational Applications, a Case Study


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Abstract

In this paper we study and introduce some ideas of applying Haptics technology in the field of
Education. We argue that Haptics technology of virtually touching and feeling objects and forces,
enhances the existing methods and procedures of teaching and learning and it is a valuable tool for
pupils and students to apprehend certain aspects of knowledge. The effectiveness of Educational
applications concerning school age children can be enhanced by the immersion that Haptics technology
provides. During the proposed Haptics applications, children are able to experience nature laws, shapes
and behaviours, using special input devices, like Gloves, Force-Feedback devices, etc. The objects that
appear visually on the screen also exist physically in a virtual way in order to provide the impression that
they can be touched and manipulated as if they were real objects. Integrating and using the haptic
metaphor in the learning procedure, children better comprehend ideas concerning several subjects of
Science, such as the Newtonian laws, space phenomena and mechanics assembly


Introduction – Background

In the recent years, education has been influenced by technology evolution in several ways.
Informatics has offered various tools and methodologies that led in applications with visual or acoustical
interaction. Picture and motion aided in the apprehension of the Physic World and helped students
acquire a better image of certain chapters of Science.
It appears that there is a difficulty in understanding certain aspects of the Physic World because
more than vision and hearing is required in order to fully perceive the physic phenomena and the laws
that rule them. It is hard for a teacher to efficiently explain the fact that different planets have different
gravity fields where different forces are applied on the objects or the Solar bodies that surround them. It
is not easy, at least in our days, to leave the Earth and travel in the Solar system! Moreover, it is also
very time consuming and expensive to bring students in front of certain mechanical constructions, like
watermills and devices like differential gears, and allow them to study their function [2].

Learning procedures
Throughout history, Education has evolved and new teaching methods have been acquired in order
to improve the learning procedures. It has never been a static field but always tries to adapt the current
cultural and technological status, and the intellectual requirements of society. One of the most important
questions has always been how to make students participate in the learning procedures. Actually there
are two ways of participating in the Learning Procedure, the Passive way and the Active way [1].
The Passive way of learning procedure is to obtain knowledge without interacting with the media
that offers it. One such way is by reading books, where the student accepts the knowledge but has
limited ways to test if he has fully perceived it. In the Passive way students read / listen / view but do not
experience, and that leads to a low level of perception for part of the Physic World. Moreover, most of us
have noticed the decreased interest and enthusiasm that most of participants have during the above
procedure.
The Active way of learning procedure is to gain knowledge by participating, investigating the
physical scene and manipulating its elements. One of the first active ways of Learning Procedure has
been the experiments performed at school, providing students with the ability to acquire practical
knowledge that plays a great deal in cognition of science. In the last years several multimedia and on-
line applications have been released allowing children to study Scientific issues. There are commercial
applications concerning Physics and Chemistry, containing images, sounds, videos and animations that
describe several phenomena and allow children to participate, interact and play with the content while
gaining knowledge. In the Active way of learning, students experience the principles that rule nature in a
more focused way and it becomes apparent almost instantly whether they have understood the theory
that describes the Physic world correctly or erroneously.

Haptics Technology


Haptics involves the modality of touch and the sensation of shape and texture the user feels when
virtually 'touching' an object. It is related and connected to Force feedback, which is the sense of force
effects to the user hand and to Tactile feedback that is the sense of contours and surfaces on part of the
hand (usually on fingertips).
Haptic Applications allow people to interact with the sense of touch, along with visual and acoustic
representations of objects and scenes. A Haptic Application requires a Haptic Interface Device through
which the user interacts with the application.
Haptic Interfaces, being developed as commercial devices, include:

Force-feedback Joysticks

The first commercial products with some elementary application of Haptics are the Force-Feedback
Joysticks that provide the user with the sense of force effects (basically “shaking”) while playing,
known as force feedback. Logitech (Figure 1)[5] and Microsoft [4] have already produced such
devices that come in prices proper for home usage and are games-oriented. They enhance the
experience of playing video games by applying forces and vibrations on the user’s hand, providing
feedback from the game-application depending on its kind. E.g. by pressing a gun’s trigger in a First
Person Shooter game, the user feels the vibrations coming from the gun’s firing. Working with the
certain APIs one can build other than game applications that take advantage of these devices’
capabilities.