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LearnHaptics is a short educational module on the science and technology of touch, a.k.a. haptics. Our goal was to create introductory content that can be incorporated as 1-2 sessions into existing university courses across disciplines (e.g., HCI, Robotics, Psychology).

We have developed six introductory videos, equivalent to 2 hours of lessons, on the basics of haptic engineering, human perception, and interaction design with a focus on force-feedback technology. Each video is accompanied by selected readings and example assignments. Instructors can incorporate the videos (or a subset of them) into their existing courses, and individuals can use them for self-paced learning. The content is developed with funding from IEEE Robotics and Automation Society CEMRA projects and NSERC Canada.

We hope that you find the content useful and contribute to it by providing comments on what worked or not for your class or your personal learning. Also, feel free to link to other relevant haptics resources in the comments below.

You can reach us at info@learnhaptics.org.

Overview
Team
Hasti Seifi

Hasti Seifi
University of Copenhagen,
Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems

David Gueorguiev

David Gueorguiev
ISIR CNRS,
Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems

Hannah Elbaggari

Hannah Elbaggari
University of British Columbia

Samantha Melnyk

Samantha Melnyk
Korg Germany

Special Thanks

Developing LearnHaptics was possible by input from members of the haptics community. We would like to especially thank:

  • Karon E. MacLean and Katherine J. Kuchenbecker who supported the project throughout its development.
  • Members of the Haptic Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, SPIN lab at the University of British Columbia, and Shared reality lab at McGill University who reviewed the first draft of the videos.
  • The CanHaptics course instructors (Karon E. MacLean, Jeremy Cooperstock, Oliver Schneider, Vincent Levesque, Antoine Weill-Duflos, and Pourang Irani) for incorporating the videos in their course, and the students for providing feedback on the content.
Feedback

LearnHaptics was a finalist for the best interactive demonstration award at the Eurohaptics 2020. Learnhaptics was piloted at CanHaptics course in January 2021 and received positive feedback from the students (informative: 4.35, engaging: 3.93, clear: 4.23 on a 5-point scale).