Multimodal Senses: SOS signal hand cover (Fabian & Zhou Yang)

The team (Fabian & Zhou Yang) is inspired by Morse code. It is a type of character encoding system used in telecommunication. It conveys information through two different signal duration called dots and dashes. Through the use of short and long duration of vibration produced from a vibrator which correspond to the dots and dashes of the Morse code, we hope to convey information to our users.

Basic understanding of Morse code. 

Concept sketch

References

We took references for the code of the vibrator from various sites to aid in our prototyping. 

http://www.learningaboutelectronics.com/Articles/Vibration-motor-circuit.php

http://www.learningaboutelectronics.com/Articles/Vibration-motor-circuit.php

http://www.limulo.net/website/coding/physical-computing/vibration-motor-test.html

Vibrator motor

We use the following vibrator motor for our prototyping process:

Problems

The following are the problems we faced during the prototyping phases:

  1. How do we gauge the complexity of the vibration combinations to not make it too complicated for the users?
  2. Can the users be conditioned to remember the vibration combination over a period of time?

Testing of vibrator motor

Code for the vibrator motor

Final arduino circuit

User testing

We tested out the final prototype.

We managed to condition ourselves to remember the different vibration combinations for the different functions. However, it took sometime for us to remember them. At the beginning, it was confusing to differential between the long and short vibrations. However, after some practice we are fine. 

Problems faced

The following are the challenges we faced while prototyping:

  1. Figuring and setting the delays between the vibrations to imitate the dots and dashes of Morse code.
  2. Adjusting the complexity of the vibration combinations for the user.