Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

"Force Feedback" Suit Teaches You to Box

by Terrence O'Brien on November 2, 2007 at 02:39 PM

MIT Developing Force Feedback Suit
We're all familiar with force feedback at this point, a technology usually associated with video games that allows you to feel every bump, jerk, and hit in a video game through the vibrating joy stick or even vest. Now researchers at MIT are adopting the technology to help us learn and perfect motions based on a teacher's instruction.

In an example explored by Wired, a boxing student could be learning to throw the perfect jab. The student's elbow keeps popping out as opposed to staying tucked in as it should. So the instructor dons a motion-capture suit and records himself throwing that desired punch. The teacher's correct movements are then "played back" on the force-feedback suit that the student then dons. Tiny vibrations on his arm indicate the correct movement for the punch and guides his elbow back in.

One of the perks of this according to researchers is that the force feedback effects our motor functions unconsciously, so that replicating the jab requires no effort or thought once learned.

The suit increased learning rates by 23 percent and reduced errors by 27 percent among its student subjects, but it still seems to have a long way to go before it becomes a practical teaching tool.

From Wired

Related Links:


Tags: force feedback, ForceFeedback, Future tech, FutureTech, learning, research, science

Comments

1

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular