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Deutsche Version

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Balancer - a Force-Feedback device.

The Phenomenon
This patented "Force-Feedback"-technology creates the illusion, that two people in two different places are holding and moving the same physical object in their hands.

The Interaction : : : Pictures
Balancer should be hand-held like a horizontal steering wheel. Each rotation and inclination gets registered and is sent directly to the other Balancer, inducing a corresponding shift of weight. The sending and receiving of movements happen to be simultaneous.

The aim for both players is to balance their movements. They can interact by sending small "weight messages" back and forth to each other or they could agree upon one speed or direction of rotation. Even a gyro power is possible to create by rotating and tilting the Balancer very fast. It is left to the other person to amplify the gyro power or to slow it down by rotating the Balancer in the opposite direction.

Application Areas
Online games supporting haptic force transmission, especially coordinated games focusing on patience and skills should be an interesting field for this technology. It could be introduced into game controllers and smart phones.
Gaming examples: The users play together by balancing figures, balls or airplains through virtual landscapes in coordination. Or they play against each other. Then, by taking turns in balancing their figures throughout the game, they can hold out against each other's movements, thus enhancing the game's difficulty.

Balancer could be an interactive exhibit for science centres, exhibitions or brand worlds. For example to depict the phenomenon of telepresence via a physical object, to send and receive gyro power via game controllers or just to be used as an interactive seating furniture.

A variety of shapes, like spheres, cubes or asymmetric forms are imaginable, since the shape doesn't interfere the function. Also imaginable are complex interactions between more than two persons.

The Prototype : : : Pictures : Exploded drawing
Balancer is the degree of Jennifer Harden, which she earned from the Berlin University of the Arts in 2001.
The prototype was developed at the Berlin University of the Arts, in the Institute of Product and Process Design and the Institute of Timebased Media. Fields of research were the human-computer-human interaction and the future forms of haptic input and output devices.

German Patent : : : Certificate
The patent "Vorrichtung zur Übertragung einer Kraftwirkung" (A device for force-feedback) was granted the 12th of April in 2007. Publication number: DE 101 53 111