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Haptic

Explorations

The Key and the Pump have been designed and built by Marco Triverio in 24 hours during the class held by Bill Verplank at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID, www.ciid.dk).

The Key and the Pump are experimental haptic interfaces. They faithfully reproduce the feeling and the haptic feedback of a real key and a real pump, associating them with on-screen animations. The Key "cranks up" a stop-motion video, while the Pump can be used to excite digital bubbles.


The Key and the Pump are built out of scrapped motorized sliders -components that feature a small electric motor connected to a linear slider. The motor can be either used to move the slider or to resist/assist a certain movement -potentially creating a vast variety of feedback.

The Key is mounted on top of the electric motor. Depending on the position of the Key at any given time the motor either assists or obstructs the movement, creating the "clacks" typical of crank up toys. The Pump also exploits the motor to reproduce a particular haptic feedback, but this time the handle is mounted on the slider -allowing the vertical movement typical of a pump- and the resistance of the motor varies gradually with the position of the handle.


The Key and the Pump are explorations that question the negligible role of haptics in present technology.