Haptic drums

Haptics is about touch. It comes from another Greek word, and there are lots of different examples where we’ve used the idea of Haptics to try to feel things, typically in a virtual world. But coming up with a nice example that people can demonstrate the principles is sometimes a bit tricky. So a few years ago, a student decided they would do a virtual drum kit as a project, and this is what we have here. So, what you can see is, I have two drumsticks, and they’re connected to things looking a bit like a robot arm. And the point of these is to simulate a surface of a drum.

So here we see, move it down, doesn’t seem to be doing anything, but if I let it go, you notice it bouncing. [DRUM TAPPING] It’s bouncing on something that’s not there. What’s more, I can feel it. [CYMBAL TAPPING] There’s one over here. There’s a different one over here. [BASS DRUM TAPPING] And another one over here. [CYMBAL TAPPING] So I can play something like a tune. Or I could if I was a bit more musical. [DRUMS TAPPING]