TangiBall

We are naturally interacting with objects, which are mostly stable in their shapes and perceptions. TangiBall is a reconfigurable physical object interface, which enables the graspable environment to adapt to its user, depending on possible needs. TangiBall allows the user to experience the difference forms and compliances with a single interface, and enables the different tool functionalities as a natural result of the form change.

A proprioceptive layer makes the object self-aware and its physical properties trackable. Object exists beyond the physical world, in the virtual reality (VR) and becomes a data source. Beside providing an immersive human-machine interface, TangiBall technology reaches out to the people in need, surpassing the static physical world. A rehabilitation expert reaches patients instantly without the patient or the expert travelling and adjusts the object for the therapy process based on the patient’s recovery data acquired by the object itself.

TangiBall is constructed based on the robotic origami design methodology and embeddable, distributed fluidic actuator networks addressing the challenge of producing the haptic feedback in hand-scale, without increasing the fabrication cost and complexity and yet still providing enough range of force in a transparent and intuitive way. 

Tangiball is a part of the vision which considers the objects itselves as a part of the collective intelligence, to support the human’s communal adaptation to the rapidly changing environment. During this demonstration, you will be able to grasp the TangiBall and feel the different shape modes of the device at different stiffness levels.