Feeling Obstacles in VR With a Wheelchair

In an interesting demonstration of ways to work with virtual reality objects, Bristol Interaction and Graphics Lab PhD student Joey Campbell has set up a wheelchair to apply Arduino-controlled brakes whenever it hits an object.

As seen in the video below, he uses it to help simulate pushing a soccer ball and a box into a virtual frame, while he feels their resistive force through the chair’s handles.

Though he’s shown moving the device around, there’s no reason that something like this couldn’t be used in a sitting position in order to simulate interactions for those constrained to a wheelchair. For that matter, the same concept could be applied to virtual biking excursions or perhaps other VR interactions.

[h/t Hackaday]