[Robotgroup] Project Hand-Off

[Edwin Wise]

Who wants this?

Edwin!

On 7 Jul 2008, at 2:39 PM, Andre Lamothe wrote:

> There are numerous buzzers in digikey etc. that make a huge  
> vibration, etc.

There are indeed over 900 "buzzers" listed in DigiKey, but DigiKey,  
Mouser, Surplus Center, and other reliable sources are failing me when  
it comes to a cheap and decent vibrator.

Looking at DigiKey's buzzers briefly, tactile vibration doesn't  
actually appear to be a feature mentioned.  I'm not too sure how well  
a SPL-optimized buzzer will translate into tactile response, but  
that's certainly a valid area for experimentation... which takes  
time... which I'm short of.  Your statement that they make a "huge  
vibration" comes from... experience?  Experience is great!  Or maybe  
you just stumbled across the right data sheet when you looked.

> So are you looking for the electrical design as well, that is, the  
> be able to control them seperately or all at once in parallel, etc.?  
> Like Paul said, can you give a complete outline of the project spec  
> and deliverables.

Vern posted the Tingler info, so that's pretty much it.  I expect the  
easiest will be to have one switch to turn them all on at once, then  
off again, according to the movie's cue.

There is no fixed outline for the project -- the movie indicates a  
point in time where we want a Tingle effect -- and vibration is how  
they did this in the past.  I don't think putting $10 tazers into the  
seats will go over well with the theater, though it would certainly  
"tingle". Heh.

There used to be a nice, cheap set of bass shakers available, but the  
only devices I see now that are optimized this way are overly  
expensive.  For speakers pointing at the seat, maybe, but again I'm  
not sure about the coupling; I've used speakers to drive vibration  
before, and have always gotten much better results NOT using speakers  
to drive vibration, but to create a direct-coupled device instead.

As for mount points, size, etc etc -- that's between the builder and  
Lars. I proposed a visit to the theatre to gather this data and  
perhaps perform a test, but nothing has been set up yet.

The target date is an as-yet only loosely specified time somewhere in  
September, during Fantastic Fest.

Now you know as much as I do, except for Lars' e-mail address and an  
introduction, which will wait until someone bites.

Edwin!
---
Edwin Wise, Rogue Technologist
Simulated Reality Systems, LLC
www.simreal.com