Mbita's+Log

DO STUFF + PUT IT HERE = YAY
November 5/11 []
 * **Howstuffworks**

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- __Haptics:__ the science and physiology of the sense of touch (nerve receptors in the skin shuttle information back and forth between the central nervous system and the point of contact) =====

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- "With 27 bones and 40 muscles, including muscles located in the forearm, the hand offers tremendous dexterity. Scientists quantify this dexterity using a concept known as **degrees of freedom**. A degree of freedom is movement afforded by a single joint." =====

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Example: A hand reaching for and then grasping a ball. As the hand changes shape to grasp the ball, change in muscle tension and joint angle are collected by receptors called proprioceptors. The brain processes this __kinesthetic__ information to provide a sense of the baseball's size and shape, as well as its position relative to the hand, arm and body. Sensors in the finger pads (which are responsible for different sensations: light touch, heavy touch, pressure, vibration and pain) send information to the brain about texture, thermal properties etc. This is __tactile__. =====

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Example: When referring to mobile phones and similar devices, this generally means the use of vibrations from the device's vibration alarm to denote that a touchscreen button has been pressed. In this particular example, the phone would vibrate slightly in response to the user's activation of an on-screen control, making up for the lack of a normal tactile response that the user would experience when pressing a physical button. =====

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*Haptic systems need... (1) software to determine the forces that result when a user's virtual identity interacts with an object and (2) a device through which those forces can be applied to the user ===== - __Haptic rendering:__ the process used by the software to perform calculations ( a common method is using polyhedral models to represent real world objects) Example: The **CyberGrasp** system is a commercially available haptic interface system. This device fits over the user's entire hand like an exoskeleton and adds resistive force feedback to each finger. Five actuators produce the forces, which are transmitted along tendons that connect the fingertips to the exoskeleton. With the CyberGrasp system, users are able to feel the size and shape of virtual objects that only exist in a computer-generated world. To make sure a user's fingers don't penetrate or crush a virtual solid object, the actuators can be individually programmed to match the object's physical properties. __Applications of Haptic Technology__ - In Greece, computer scientists are making touchable maps for the blind to get a better feel of a city/building layout - Video games: vibrating controllers (future video games will enable players to feel and manipulate virtual solids, fluids, tools and avatars) - Phones: Nokia phone designers have perfected a tactile touchscreen that makes on-screen buttons behave as if they were real buttons. When a user presses the button, they feel movement in and movement out. He also hears an audible click. Nokia engineers accomplished this by placing two small piezoelectric sensor pads under the screen and designing the screen so it could move slightly when pressed. Everything -movement and sound -- is synchronized perfectly to simulate real button manipulation. - Medecine: medical students can now perfect delicate surgical techniques on the computer, feeling what it's like to suture blood vessels in an anastomosis or inject botox into the muscle tissue of a virtual face - Soldiers: from learning how to defuse a ­bomb to operating a helicopter, tank or fighter jet in virtual combat scenario - Telerobotics: a human operator controls the movements of a robot that is located some distance away (could be used in space exploration) - Education: teachers get students to interact with objects, such as viruses or nanoparticles or probe cells or to teach students about invisible forces like gravity and friction more completely <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- A good animation explaining the basics of haptic technology: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- An actuator, a small motorlike device, causes the vibration in equipment with tactile feedback. Software known as the haptic player actually controls how intense the actuator vibrates and when it vibrates. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Excerpts: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- "We’re working on a way to create realistic textures on tablet computers. When you drag your finger across a phone’s screen, what would it be like to feel the edges of buttons and keys? If you saw a picture of a cat sitting on a table, what if you could feel the cat’s fur and then the roughness of the table it was sitting on? These are all very challenging actuator technology problems, but there are many haptics researchers and companies working on these types of issues." = cool! <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- "I’m honored to be the Skirkanich Assistant Professor of Innovation in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the University of Pennsylvania. Using the term [innovation] in the title means that Penn is committed to innovation. How do I define it? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">To innovate is to try to put together seemingly unconnected categories to make something magical, while being committed to find an excellent solution. Innovation means resisting falling in love in with any one idea, so you can be sure to find the best possible answer out there. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">As an engineer or a designer, it’s easy to fall in love with one idea, but it’s more exciting to try to push the boundaries. That means coming up with lots of bad ideas as you’re testing limits. But then you can see things others haven’t seen. With my students at Penn, as well as my colleagues, we identify problems and then come up with ten, twenty, one hundred answers. Then we stand back and evaluate them. This helps us rapidly move toward solutions that haven’t shown up before. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> //__So my quick definition of innovation is to look at the world and see possibilities that aren’t yet there__// ." <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">*so inspiring I put this on the inspiration page* :P <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- "On the other side, designers excel mostly in designing and developing traditional interfaces based on vision and audition. Touch sensing technology is rapidly reaching mass-market, but only as input mechanisms. //Haptics with its active and actuated feedback is still unfamiliar// to most designers. This new design space can be daunting as very few tools and methods are available to tackle the numerous challenges surrounding the topic. Humans are very skilled at ‘handling’ interactions and sensations with the real world: playing a musical instrument, medical surgery, peeling a potato, riding a mountain bike. We have developed our nervous and motor systems in tune with the natural stimuli surrounding us. Recreating such stimulations successfully, and on-demand, on the touch sense is absolutely not trivial." <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">***"The results of this project were interesting to us because they showed that with the proper attitude and tools, it is possible to come up, build and physically test haptic designs in very little time." It's possible! (...hopefully..) :D**
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**International Society for Haptics**
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**eHow**
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**"Why design is key in haptics innovation"**: an article interviewing Katherine Kuchenbecker
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Designing for Touch: Creating and Building Meaningful Haptic Interfaces**

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<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">November 13/11 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- Tornadoes occur when warm, wet air collides with cool, dry air within a storm cloud and as the winds spin faster it twists down to the ground <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">---> clouds are formed when water vapour condenses in the air <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- __Vortex:__ a spiral motion of fluid within a limited area, especially a whirling mass of water or air that sucks everything near it toward its center <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Eg. We've all seen this in our bathtub or sink <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- When a tornadoes vortex touches the ground, wind speeds can get up to 300mph. The tornado follows a path that is controlled by the route of its parent thundercloud, and it will often appear to "hop". The hops occur when the vortex is disturbed. It's easy to disturb a vortex in the tub, but then it will reform. The same thing can happen to a tornado's vortex, causing it to collapse and reform along its path. Tornadoes need instability and rotation. Disrupt the airflow, take away its moisture or destroy its unstable balance of hot and cold air, and it can't function. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Also, two accounts of people who were** //inside**// a tornado: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- __How it starts:__ A hurricane builds energy as it moves across the ocean, sucking up warm, moist tro­pical air from the surface and dispensing cooler air aloft. Think of this as the storm breathing in and out. The hurricane escalates until this "breathing" is disrupted, like when the storm makes landfall. At this point, the storm quickly loses its momentum and power, but not without unleashing wind speeds as high as 185 mph on coastal areas. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- __Lifecycle:__ Hurricanes often begin their lives as clusters of clouds and thunderstorms called //tropical disturbances//. These low-pressure areas feature little or no rotation. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">1. Tropical depression: wind speeds are less than 38mph <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">2. Tropical storm: wind speed is between 39-73 mph <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">3. Hurricane: wind speed is more than 74mph <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- __Why it ends__: The important supply of warm, moist air vanishes when the hurricane makes landfall. Condensation and the release of latent heat diminishes, and the friction of an uneven landscape decrease wind speeds. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- Hurricanes need 4 things to form: low air pressure, warm temp., moist ocean air and tropical winds <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- They are fueled by the heat energy that is released when water vapor condenses therefore it dies when its energy source is gone (as it travels over land or cold water) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">*//Immersion = leading developers of force feedback technology//* <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">1. Medical Simulation: gives training medical practitioners a chance to practice <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">2. Medical Devices <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">3. Touchscreen Products: used for ultrasound (so cool!), "these medical products restores “feel” to the interaction providing the healthcare professional with intuitive and unmistakable confirmation through delivery of critical information such as IV flow rate changes, vital sign alarm parameters, or dosage thresholds" <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">4. Robotic Surgery: for minimally invasive surgery (especially laparoscopic and arthroscopic procedures); <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">"one of the deficiencies of most robotic surgical systems today is the lack of the sensation of touch for the surgeon. Implementation of haptic feedback into robotic surgical systems can transform the physician’s user experience by enabling identification of different tissue structures, preventing tissue damage, insuring correct suture placement and decreasing task completion time" <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">> **__Laparoscopic surgery__** = performing surgery with the assistance of a video camera and several thin instruments (used in pancreas, bile duct and liver surgery) <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,serif;"> * Da Vinci™ is a computer-assisted robotic system that expands a surgeon's capability to operate within the abdomen in a less invasive way during laparoscopic surgery. Da Vinci™ system allows greater precision and better visualization compared to standard laparoscopic surgery. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">The operations with the Da Vinci System are performed with no direct mechanical connection between the surgeon and the patient. The surgeon is remote from the patient, working a few feet from the operating table while seated at a computer console with a three-dimensional view of the operating field. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">The physician operates two masters (**__similar to joysticks__**) that control the two mechanical arms on the robot. The mechanical arms are armed with specialized instruments with hand-like movements which carry out the surgery through tiny holes in the patient’s abdomen. Three small incisions (approximately one half inch) are made in the abdomen, through which a video camera and the robotic arms with the highly-specialized instruments are introduced. The video camera provides high resolution, high magnification and depth perception. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[] <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">- __How its done:__ The technology seamlessly translates the surgeon's movements at the computer console into precise, real-time movements of the surgical instruments inside the patient. While the surgeon's hands and fingers direct the surgery, the movements are translated by the computer to precise movement of the microsurgical instruments on the robotic arms inside the patient's body. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">da Vinchi site __(WATCH THE VIDEO)__: []
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**How Tornadoes Work**
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**How Hurricanes Work**
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**How Hurricanes Form and Die**
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Haptic Touch: Medical Applications**

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">> **__Arthroscopic surgery__** = a surgical procedure orthopaedic surgeons use to visualize, diagnose, and treat problems inside a joint <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">(The word arthroscopy comes from two Greek words, "arthro" (joint) and "skopein" (to look). The term literally means "to look within the joint.") <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- <span class="goog_qs-tidbit goog_qs-tidbit-1">In an arthroscopic examination, an orthopaedic surgeon makes a small incision in the patient's skin and then inserts pencil-sized instruments that contain a small lens and lighting system to magnify and illuminate the structures inside the joint. Light is transmitted through fiber optics to the end of the arthroscope that is inserted into the joint. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- __How its done__: Arthroscopic surgery still requires the use of anesthetics and the special equipment in a hospital operating room or outpatient surgical suite. A small incision (about the size of a buttonhole) will be made to insert the arthroscope. Several other incisions may be made to see other parts of the joint or insert other instruments. Corrective surgery is performed with specially designed instruments that are inserted into the joint through accessory incisions. (After the surgery, the incisions will be covered with dressing.The small puncture wounds take several days to heal but the operative dressing can usually be removed the morning after surgery and adhesive strips can be applied to cover the small healing incisions.) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[]

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">.................................................................................................................. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">November 15/11

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">My blurb for the written report: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Our exhibit will feature robotic arms that have haptic touch to enable the visitor to interact with the materials inside the dome in a unique way. Haptics is the science of applying the touch sensation to interaction with computer applications. Common haptic technology includes vibrating controllers for gaming systems (eg., when the character in a video game is injured) or Android smartphones which have the ability to vibrate when buttons are pressed. More advanced technology is used in laparoscopic surgery, for instance, where the technology translates the surgeon's movements at the computer console into precise, real-time movements of the surgical instruments inside the patient. Technology similar to that used in robotic surgery will be displayed in our exhibit. By using special input/output devices, a joystick for instance, visitors can receive feedback from the computer device through sensations in their hands.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">................................................................................................................... <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">December 6/11

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The intro for our practice presentation: (a bit cheesy, I know) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">You’re visiting the Ontario Science Centre and what do you expect to find? Cool and interactive demonstrations and exhibits as well as some insight into modern science that you’d be hard pressed to find anywhere else, right? Well, we’ve got exactly the exhibit that you need and it’s great for all age groups. Presenting the **RoboBuilder** ! What makes this exhibit unique is that it features robotic arms – advanced technology that the public does not often get a chance to interact with. Using these arms, the visitor will try and find a solution to the presented problem. This exhibit will encourage innovation because it requires creativity and it will promote perseverance as well as collaboration.