Collaborating Through Magic Pens: Grounded Forces in Large, Overlappable Workspaces

Abstract

We demonstrate a grounded, planar force feedback device (the Magic Pen) via applications in collaborative task coordination and learning. The pen’s ballpoint drive achieves force-feedback grounding through rolling frictional contact on an arbitrary 2D surface. Its current tether provides communications and power, to be replaced in the near future with wireless and battery respectively. The ballpoint drive can render virtual features such as constraints and active guidance with no restriction on 2D workspace size or location. Together, these features give Magic Pens unique capabilities: multiple users can use them flexibly in either co-located or remote collaboration, e.g., reaching in and around one another to access the same point; and (untethered) they will be fully nomadic force feedback devices [8]. We will demonstrate a pair of Magic Pens in two collaborative scenarios: Virtual Jigsaw Puzzle: Working together to complete a task, users experience constraints (e.g., board edge; repelled from a partner’s piece); and guidance (e.g., one user can direct a partner’s attention to another piece). Virtual Electrostatic Lab: The Pen conveys electrostatic forces between charges. Multiple users can place and drag point charges in the same field, and feel the changing attractive/repulsive forces to understand their inverse square relation to separation.