THE PROJECT
Rumble Rally is a game powered by Unity as our twin-scroll turbo-charged V12 engine, Oculus Quest as our slick ultra-clear racing helmet, and bHaptics as the new state-of-the-art racing suit.
Rumble Rally is the product of an industrial design term project during my exchange semester at Eindhoven Technical University. Our team of four, working under the design brief "a hyperrealistic XR experience", strived to bring the thrill of competition and comradery, two things we love about games, to visually-impaired gamers.
We hit the ground running - researching the current market of games made for the visually impaired, and how the current mainstream market of games was serving this demographic. Through this research, we snagged our racing sponsorship from Royal Dutch Visio, a rehab and advice company for the visually impaired. Their innovation team, intrigued by the potential to explore technology utilization for the visually impaired, supplied us with the gear we needed to kick it into high gear!
DESIGN GOALS
• Apply ASK (Attitude, Skills, Knowledge) related to the expertise areas in the project
• Take into account the target group and their needs and desires
• Create an XR hyperrealistic experience
• Create a high-fidelity prototype
WHAT I DID
• Integrated bHaptics with Unity
• Designed and implemented the haptic suit to simulate the thrill of driving a car on different terrains
• Designed and implemented haptics to guide the racers
• Held quick usability sessions to test implemented haptics features
• Improved the haptics based on the results of usability testing
Through basic usability testing of the guidance haptic feedback, we realized we needed to add prediction "feelers" to anticipate upcoming bends and turns. Initial testing with only side-distance vibrations found that users would overcompensate when steering.
We then further fine-tuned the intensity of guidance and thrill features.
HAPTICS FOR GUIDANCE
• Racers steer toward bHatpics suit vibrations, to drive along the optimal racing line
• Ray casts system measures ("feels for") the distance of the driver to the race line
• Ray cast system's "feelers" predict upcoming bends and turns by extra forward pointing rays
HAPTICS FOR THRILL
• Haptics simulate car's vibrations while driving on pavement and gravel
• bHaptics software development kit to manipulate the intensity of motors in suit and code suit's various vibration profiles
Yellow rays - feel for distance
Red rays - predict bends
Visualization of the suit motors
FURTHER DISCOVERY/CONSIDERATIONS
• Differences between bodily ergonomics
• Sense thresholds - Designing the scale of suit vibrations with sense thresholds in mind
• Sense masking - how the brain chooses which vibrations and intensities to give attention
