Description
Using a recycled, industrial rubber belt embedded with vibrating motors and LED lights, this band is an vibrating array of motors and lights that encircles the wrist. This band was not initially designed for wearability but more to test ideas concerning vibrating motor arrays for the wrist.
Design and Research Questions
- Would an array of vibrating motors encircling the wrist provide interesting sensations?
- What the aesthetic impact be to mix vibrating motors with buttons on a rubber band?
- How could vibrational patterns be aligned with game dynamics to enrich the game-playing experiences?
- Could symbolic information be possibly transmitted using an array of vibrating motors?
Components
- Recycled rubber conveyor-belt material
- Vibrating motors (suitable for mobile phones)
- Single colour LED lights
- Arduino controller
- Wiring
Discussion
Rubber was an initial material for exploration. Rubber is inexpensive, waterproof, easy to cut and mould and is quite durable. It is hard to the touch however and tends not to be stylistically appropriate for the pre-teen, ‘tween’ (aged 7-12 years) audience for whom the Mgds-Pet wrist-wearable is being designed.