Abstract: The sense of touch (haptics) is an active perceptual system used from our earliest days to discover the world around us. However, formal education is not designed to take advantage of this sensory modality. As a result, very little is known about the effects of using haptics in K-12 and higher education or the requirements for haptic devices for educational applications. This talk will focus on the design of novel haptic devices for educational applications. I will present three novel, open-source, low-cost haptic devices for educational applications and discuss some general principles for designing such devices. The first device, Hapkit is a one-degree-of-freedom kinesthetic device that has been used in several education environments, where we have discovered the potential of haptics to display abstract mathematical concepts and observed the importance of device customization for the students. The second, Haplink, introduces a novel mechanism that enables the device to transform between a one- and two-degree-of-freedom haptic device in order to enable additive learning. The third device, HapCaps is a tactile haptic device that was developed to study the connection between finger perception and math learning in young children. The aim is to design haptic devices that can be used in several educational environments in order to enrich students’ interactions with the digital world as well as understand the role of haptics in learning.

Brief Bio: Melisa Orta Martinez is an Assistant Professor in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. She received the BS degree in electronic systems engineering from the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico City. She then obtained a MS degree in electrical engineering and a PhD in mechanical engineering from Stanford University, Stanford, CA. Her research interests include haptics, robotics and education.

Host: Aaron Steinfeld

Point of Contact: Stephanie Matvey (smatvey@andrew.cmu)