"Communicating Feeling"; A Haptic Vector Field Experience

The CHARM lab at Stanford studies haptic devices (devices that give people tactile sensory feedback) and how these devices can be used to enhance learning. The goal of this fellowship is to create a lesson plan that enhances student learning using a particular haptic device. In addition, the fellows are also asked to program the haptic device and any supplementary applications that may be needed to complete the lesson. The lesson created introduces students to vector fields by recognizing that a change in direction and/magnitude can be represented as different vectors. In the activity, students work together in teams to determine the location point in a plane that is not visible. Students will rely on the haptic sensation to guide them and must relay the "feeling" in terms of magnitude and direction to a teammate. The lesson is preceded by instruction on vector addition involving forces and momentum and concludes with an assessment that requires students to interpret the resultant of vector addition.