WHO: Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, University of Pennsylvania

28 University of Pennsylvania students in Dr. Kuchenbecker’s MEAM 625: Haptic Interfaces graduate-level course on science and technology of touch-based interactions for virtual environments, teleoperation and autonomous robots.  

WHAT: Penn Haptics Open House: Interactive Exhibition of Student Projects    

WHERE:      Main haptics research lab, Room 144 of the Towne Building, and satellite haptics classroom, Towne 195, 220 S. 33rd St.

WHEN:         Friday, Dec. 10, 1-3p.m.

Students will present eight class projects in hands-on demonstrations allowing visitors to:

• Improve golf-putting accuracy by practicing golf swings with haptic guidance
• Throw and catch a virtual ball that can be felt in your hand
• Blindly navigate unknown areas using a smart cane that alerts you to overhead obstacles
• Play a virtual drum that you can see, feel and hear all at once
• Learn how to hit a tennis ball from a virtual haptic tennis coach
• Try to locate the lump in a mock prostate using a tactile sensing array for robotic surgery
• Kick a virtual haptic soccer ball and try to score a goal
• Watch the PR2 robot automatically find objects on a table via tactile scanning

The Open House is free and open to the public.