HaptX Gloves
Why is this project worthy of an award?
From the beginning, HaptX’s founder, Jake Rubin had a big vision: create a technology that lets you touch virtual reality. He wanted to build the holodeck, and he believed it was feasible with today’s technology. When HaptX announced its first product last November, it was a step toward realizing Jake’s ambition to build a full-body immersive rig to replicate touch and locomotion in VR. The HaptX Glove was the first and only haptic solution capable of letting users simultaneously feel the shape, movement, and texture of virtual objects. We’ve even added thermal feedback in one of our prototypes. To accomplish this, HaptX took a novel approach to haptics. Rather than relying on vibrational motors—which has been used for decades in game controllers and phones—HaptX developed and patented its own silicone-based smart textile that contains an array of microfluidic channels. These tiny channels deliver air to small, tactile actuators (essentially inflatable bubbles), which enable the glove to physically displaces the skin the same way a real object would when touched. For example, when you have a tiny virtual fox run around on your hand in our demo, you feel each of its individual paws, making it feel real. Each glove has over 100 points of tactile feedback and can apply up to five pounds of resistive force feedback, enabling users to also feel size and contour. On top that, HaptX had to develop its own industrial-grade motion tracking system capable of capturing finger movement with submillimeter precision. Without this, realistic touch isn’t possible. A saying among startups is “Hardware is hard.” It’s a reason most startups avoid it. Jake’s vision and the innovative team members behind him have led HaptX to develop a new category of VR hardware. The HaptX Glove isn’t a gaming peripheral or novelty from Kickstarter; it’s a premium tool that enables a new way to interface with training and design applications in virtual reality.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
In the four months since we debuted the prototype of the HaptX Gloves, we’ve seen an unprecedented level of acclaim for a new VR product. We’ve had validation from top press members, industry veterans, and innovation departments in Fortune 500 companies. We were selected for the Sundance Film Festival, where Chief Curator Shari Frilot compared our technology to the debut of the Oculus Rift at the festival in 2012. We received a technology award from the Advanced Imaging Society for advancing the creation and quality of work in the arts and entertainment. It’s a technology you have to feel to believe, so until you’ve a chance to try it (which can be arranged), we hope these examples offer some validation of how groundbreaking the HaptX Glove really is: Nicole Lee, Senior Editor at Engadget: "I was surprised by how realistic the touch sensations felt. It's unlike any other VR controller I've tried." [https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/20/haptx-gloves-vr/] Sarah Needleman, Reporter at The Wall Street Journal: “I was surprised by the animal’s realistic appearance—and also by the sensation of its tiny paws as they walked a circle in my palm. [ https://www.wsj.com/articles/virtual-reality-now-with-the-sense-of-touch-1522764377?] Janko Roettgers, Senior Correspondent at Variety: “The result is remarkably realistic...the glove could accurately reproduce the sensation of something slowly gliding over your hand.” [ http://variety.com/2018/digital/news/ready-player-one-vr-tech-1202739419/] Richard Trenholm, Senior Editor at CNET: "The HaptX Glove makes the virtual so startlingly real I thought I was actually touching a rock, a cloud, and a spider." [ https://www.cnet.com/news/sundance-2018-vr-glove-haptx-virtual-reality/] Ben Lang, Executive Editor of Road to VR: "I’ve tried a few other similar systems, but the haptics from the HaptX Glove blew the others away." [https://www.roadtovr.com/haptx-vr-glove-micro-pneumatic-haptics-force-feedback-axonvr/] Destin Sandlin, PhD and Creator of Smarter Every Day, a YouTube Science Channel with 5.5 million subscribers: "I didn't think VR is going to catch on, but HaptX has changed my mind." [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK2y4Z5IkZ0&] Kent Bye, Podcaster from Voices of VR, top VR podcast: "Everything else that I’ve seen so far hasn’t been anywhere near as close or as good as what I’ve seen with the HaptX Glove." [http://voicesofvr.com/619-grabbing-virtual-objects-with-the-haptx-glove-formerly-axonvr] Adi Robertson, Senior Reporter at The Verge: “The best VR and AR from Sundance 2018.” [https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/26/16919236/sundance-2018-best-virtual-reality-augmented-vr-ar-new-frontier] Dean Takahashi, Lead Writer at VentureBeat: "I could feel the texture, size, weight, and impact of objects in a virtual environment." [https://venturebeat.com/2017/12/23/haptx-is-working-on-vrs-long-awaited-touch-glove/]
Who worked on the project?
Jake Rubin – Founder, CEO Bob Crockett – Co-founder
View the project video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK2y4Z5IkZ0&
Haverford College Visual Culture, Arts & Media (VCAM) Building
Company MSR
Introduction Date October 27, 2017
Project Website https://msrdesign.com/case-study/haverford-college-visual-culture-arts-media-vcam-building/
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Haverford College’s new Visual Culture, Arts, and Media (VCAM) building offers students, faculty, staff, and the local community a highly flexible, 24/7 learning environment of transecting spaces designed for creative entrepreneurship, media production, and design experimentation. Located in a converted 1900 gym, VCAM represents an intersection of the physical and programmatic in which modes of seeing, understanding, and remaking the world are activated in dynamic combinations. The building serves as a setting where students across the arts, humanities, and sciences can generate new ideas together and engage in dialogue, movement, and hands-on production. The design creates vertical and horizontal links through the heart of the building to engage students, community innovators, and faculty in cross-disciplinary spaces. The project also engages green space, inviting maker and display activities in entries and outdoor areas. The building’s mix of functions and central location create a collaborative hub that invites the liberal arts to return to their craft and maker roots. The flexible and technologically sophisticated confluence of spaces includes classrooms; makerspace; pop-up create areas; and production, post-production, and screening labs—all devised to bring diverse users together for classes, design and innovation workshops, screenings, and community-based advocacy. The building’s design also promotes VCAM’s mission by creating a 24/7 atmosphere of simplicity, vitality, comfort, visibility, and non-precious self-organization. All primary program spaces open onto and animate the heart of the building—a three-story volume that features a remnant of an indoor running track converted into a viewing catwalk. This central space has become the campus family room through its presentation lounge and community kitchen. It also serves as a crossroads for artists, filmmakers, scholars, activists, and entrepreneurs, all brought to Haverford by over $2 million in VCAM and Visual Studies programming (e.g., Haverford Innovations Program, Philadelphia Area Creative Collaboratives initiative, and Philadelphia Young Artist in Residence Program). The space also enhances Haverford’s already strong partnerships with cultural and educational institutions in Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore, and other surrounding communities. The design preserves the original gym’s strong, fundamental geometry as a single volume encircled by a suspended running track, while inserting a three-story box that houses stacked functions into the existing volume. The old serves as a container for the new to create continuity between Haverford’s rich history and its bright future driven by a collaborative educational agenda, while creative acoustic treatments achieve the sound separation required to allow students to coexist happily in the building. The sustainable design strategy focused on restoring the building’s historic stone exterior and maintaining as much of the unique character of the vaulted gym’s interior environment as possible. The project reuses a range of building elements (e.g., gym floor, deconstructed stone, raised panel doors, stair bannisters, lockers, and squash court glass) to support sustainability measures and promote a spirit of making and memory. On a path to achieve LEED Gold certification, the building includes high efficiency heating, cooling, and electrical systems to achieve energy savings.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Most higher education campus buildings have a commonly understood typology. The Haverford College VCAM building evolved in response to a unique, cross-disciplinary mission grounded in visual culture. The following principles guided design: • Nexus: Create relationships with adjacent buildings and landscape. • Collaboration: Foster interaction through openness, comfort, and activity. • Hub: Create a center from which all activities radiate. • Adaptability: Provide a flexible environment that accommodates change. • Memory: Collage existing architecture with new. • Directness: Use materials, organization, and form in elegant and intuitive ways. • Function: Be maintainable and efficient. • Activation: Provide opportunities to attain visual literacy through dynamic spaces. VCAM embodies diverse cross-disciplinary activity. The campus was surveyed for existing, often improvised, spaces where cross-disciplinary and multimodal activities have spontaneously developed. The qualities of these spaces that have spawned making, hacking, performing, display, and hanging out became the inspiration for VCAM’s learning environment. The design promotes VCAM’s mission by creating a 24/7 atmosphere of openness, vitality, comfort, visibility, and self-organization. All primary program spaces open onto and animate the heart of the building—a three-story remnant of an indoor running track—that now functions as campus family room with kitchen, community table, display area, projection wall, and movable furniture. A converted old gym serves as an ideal setting for a place that supports creativity, innovation, and the study of visual culture. Visual artists often seek light-filled, old, non-precious buildings that have the accreted character of past uses and past times to use for their workspaces. The design for the VCAM facility preserves key existing features, such as iron trusses, fireplaces, and other historic elements. Paint-striped gym wood flooring has been repurposed into decorative ceilings, and colorful old gym lockers now serve as storage. Squash court glass panels have become marker boards for sketching, and the running track provides circulation and serves as a pulpit and quiet getaway. The old serves as a container for the new, creating continuity between Haverford’s rich history and its bright future driven by an inventive academic agenda. The gallery, state-of-the-art screening/performance room, and maker spaces are intended to be used by the surrounding community, as well as by Haverford students, faculty, and staff. They are conveniently located on the ground floor near visitor parking and shuttle services. The VCAM building’s diverse functions and central location create a campus learning hub. A breakdown of programmed spaces includes 22% for presentation and gathering, 17% for making and production, 19% for multimedia screening and performing, 14% for faculty offices, 14% for teaching, and 14% for building services. This balance of functional spaces brings diverse users together for scheduled activities, as well as serendipitous interactions, throughout the day.
Who worked on the project?
Haverford College and MSR
View the project video: https://vimeo.com/269093367
Hey Pressto
Company DBLG
Introduction Date October 10, 2017
Project Website https://dblg.co.uk/projects/hey-pressto/
Why is this project worthy of an award?
As a creative agency we're aways looking for ways to fit in creative play. This is the oil in our engine! And what better way to celebrate our 10th anniversary than to create an innovative and unique film that's a bit cheeky (pardon the pun) and breaks the conventions of stop motion animation.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Entirely filmed in-camera combining our skills in design, 3D printing, stop motion and digital animation we used actors’ skin as a canvas, this innovative passion project is truly one of a kind. It took four months of R&D to get the right kind of stamp. Once we were happy with the quality, we work closely with our friends at Animade who helped us animate the characters. We then directed the films with brave eight cast members who let us push stamps all over their body for three painstaking days.
Who worked on the project?
DBLG - CONCEPT, DESIGN, DIRECTION, EDIT, PRODUCTION Animade - ANIMATION Malcolm Hadley - DOP Mutant Jukebox - Audio Miriam Babooram, Shireenah Ingram, Sophie O' Shea, Sandra Meunier, Dani Wolf, Jordan Okai, Frank Gordon, Tom Murphy - Cast
View the project video: https://vimeo.com/238167028
Hilton Innovation Gallery
Company Hilton
Introduction Date November 13, 2017
Project Website http://newsroom.hilton.com/index.cfm/news/hilton-launces-incubator-to-fasttrack-guest-innovations
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Every hotel has its similarities: a check-in process, bed, bathroom and often somewhere to eat or drink. The lodging industry is huge - Hilton alone finished 2017 with 1.2 million rooms open or under construction. This sheer scale can be a barrier to innovation. Hilton faces the challenge of providing a consistent offering across more than 5,300 hotels in 105+ countries while navigating a decentralized franchise model that makes widespread changes challenging to deploy. However, in the age of commoditized personalization and home-sharing services, the original hotel pioneer, Hilton, has ramped up its innovation efforts to differentiate its hospitality and provide the choice and control today’s travelers crave. For some time, Hilton has been innovating in a ‘live lab’ hotel near its global headquarters just outside of Washington, DC. The hotel attracts both business and leisure travelers, which provided a diverse group to partake in beta testing and share feedback, which contributed to the decision whether to scale the product across hotels. However, Hilton knew it needed to do more to future-proof. Another driving need was to facilitate input from one of any franchise business’ key stakeholders – owners, as well as to provide an incentive to engage with potential partners, ranging from lean startups to the world’s most inventive companies. The result is Hilton’s Innovation Gallery, the first-ever physical space for Hilton to articulate its innovation vision and convene the right stakeholders to collaborate. The experiential showcase features product developments and concepts – including ones that may not make the cut – that span all parts of hotel operations. It provides a place for owners, investors, team members and technology experts to convene and learn more about technology advancements like Connected Room, a high-tech guest room that enables guests to personalize and control every aspect of their stay from their mobile device, and innovative products like noise-canceling solutions, real-time translation and Virtual Reality tools. Hilton can also attract cross-industry partners to help transform the hospitality industry in unexpected ways. A few weeks after opening, Hilton hosted a technology pitch event for luxury brand Conrad. Seven of Intel Capital’s venture capital-funded startups pitched Hilton executives products that offer frictionless, personalized, data-driven and culturally immersive experiences for the Conrad guest. Hilton is now considering two of the products, a wireless phone charging system to a personal thermostat wristband. Building on the early successes, 2018 programming includes a series of thought-leadership exchanges, design thinking sessions and test & learn events. Every month, Hilton hosts hundreds of stakeholders from all over the world in the Innovation Gallery. The owners and decision-makers walk away with a clear understanding of Hilton’s innovation vision, and how the company is facing the future. Hilton’s mission is to be the most hospitable company in the world – the Innovation Gallery symbolizes Hilton’s commitment to reimagining the travel experience to make travel more seamless for our guests, providing products and technology that allow team members to be more efficient at their jobs, and solutions that create high value for owners.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Hilton knew that a space created specifically to showcase and facilitate innovation, needed to be innovative itself. To achieve this, Hilton turned to the LAB at Rockwell Group, the award-winning architecture firm's in-house design innovation studio, to transform a 4,300 square-foot space at the Hilton McLean into an experiential center. The firm was tasked with creating more than just a futuristic sales floor. The Innovation Gallery needs to energize and excite key stakeholders and decision-makers, encourage them to think differently about the future of hospitality, and collaborate in expanding the realm of ideas and possibilities for the industry. It also needs to be a ‘living space’ with the flexibility to support constant evolutions. The Innovation Gallery has five immersive zones: • Innovation Theater: The nucleus of the gallery is perfect for presentations, meetings and collaboration sessions. The theater style setting has already played host to a number of events: Hospitality Hackathons, Thought Leadership Exchanges and Exploration Workshops such as panel discussions and activity based training. • Virtual Reality Stage: An ongoing challenge for Hilton’s business development team is providing potential owners with a sense of a hotel brand when they cannot physically visit. As an alternative to building out costly model rooms, VR technology is used to provide an immersion into a prototype model guestroom. Future iterations may include new restaurant concepts or team member training. • Product Showcase: This hands-on display features a multitude of compartments that is continually refreshed to showcase Hilton innovations such as Digital Art, sound masking solutions and personal mixology technology. Visitors learn more about products though touch screens. • Food & Beverage Concept Kitchen: The space showcases restaurant concepts as well as the ability to live-stream cooking demos. The kitchen features innovative materials such a granite counter that doubles as an induction heater, and a tap from the first manufacturer of a single tap to dispense chilled still, sparkling and instant boiling hot water. • Darkroom: This progressive model guestroom shows cutting-edge material technologies that have the potential to yield better quality, sustainability, and operational returns. It currently features a Living Wall of Nordgröna Moss that absorbs sound waves and holds or releases humidity – a possibility for fitness centers. Also on display is a Woodnotes Rug, woven with 86% paper yarn, it is biodegradable, water resistant and collects neither dust nor dirt. What visitors don’t necessarily see is the custom architecture, experiential technologies and cutting-edge materials used by the design team. Almost every inch of the gallery is modular and wired. In-person or remote meetings can leverage an immersive high-tech sound and lighting system managed by a DJ Booth. While designed with a serious goal to foster and scale the most transformative innovations in hospitality, Hilton also has fun with the Innovation Gallery. Case in point? A highlight feature is the Interactive LED Entrance Wall. Created with thin wood laminate over LED boards that incorporate Microsoft Kinect Technology, this high-tech wall reacts to guest’s movements, displays text messages and will soon allow guests to play interactive games like Pong.
Who worked on the project?
Jonathan Wilson, VP Customer Experience & Innovation, Hilton Caitlin McKenna, Senior Director Customer Experience & Innovation, Hilton
View the project video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRNKfmXeevc
HP Envy ISS Printer
Why is this project worthy of an award?
The International Space Station (ISS) Crew members print about two reams of paper a month in total across all printers. Hardcopies are used for procedural and mission critical information like Emergency E-Books, inventory Return trajectories, timelines. And because the ISS is both a home and an office, personal items are also printed including letters and photographs from home. With the need for an upgrade in 2017, NASA selected the HP OfficeJet 5740 Printer as a “Next Generation Printer” to replace the existing printing capability onboard the ISS. This project was unique in nature given that it needs to work and perform in a microgravity environment. In addition, it needs to be easily used by the ISS crew who have a massively limited range of leverage and movability compared to that on earth. Other requirements included: Paper management in zero-G Flame retardant plastics Waste ink management in zero-G Glass removal Wired and wireless connectivity Printing in multiple orientations (0⁰, 90⁰, 180⁰ & 270⁰ positions) Environmental Testing (EMI, Materials, Acoustics, Flammability*, Off-gassing, Power Compatibility, etc.) Much of the needed changes centered on media containment in the output stage, all while complying microgravity. The earthbound solution to capture media in the output tray would be to use a typical manufacturing process with a sheet metal design. However, that design contained dangerous, sharp metal edges and would have required the astronauts to periodically check for loose parts. This drove us to design an HP Multi-Jet Fusion (MJF) 3D print design that took us from 11 parts and 18 nuts and bolts to 1 continuous part with no nuts and bolts. Through creative reengineering and the use of specialized materials the HP ENVY ISS successfully met all of NASA’s requirements, while embedding certain features that would otherwise be cost prohibitive and difficult to execute in a typical plastic injection molding process. Since we announced the HP ENVY ISS in November 2017, this project has continued to have a positive impact on HP’s core audiences: HP Employees, customers, partners, and Silicon Valley. We hosted a zero-gravity flight to celebrate the project for HP’s CEO Dion Weisler and his direct staff, customers and partners including project engineers, media/influencers, and the winners of an HP print innovation contest that saw more than 700 entries worldwide. We activated the HP Site Ambassador network who organized viewing parties at 12 HP offices all over the world where more than 5,000 HP employees watched the HP ENVY ISS launch into space. Designed custom flight jackets for the project engineers and their counterparts at NASA, as well as the HP leadership team that included a NASA-approved project patch. The jackets have become a status symbol within HP. Enables the ISS crew to, for the first time, print photos of their loved ones and moments they’re missing back on Earth. A top request prior to the installation of the printer.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
The unique requirement of zero-gravity usability drove us to design equally unique solutions, leading to innovative designs derived in order to meet requirements and usage on the ISS. Chiefly, there were features that were integrated into the device, via 3D printing technology, that would normally be separate parts. In addition, given that the astronauts don’t have stability and leverage like we do on earth, they may need to achieve tasks with one hand. With these parameters, we produced an ergonomic design such that the astronauts aboard could easily achieve printing tasks when using the product with one hand. For example, on the output tray which captures the media after it has been printed, there are mechanical fastener features that have been 3D printed and integrated into the tray which will hold other snap on parts. Also, the mounts that hold the output bail, which catches and stops the media, have also been seamlessly integrated into the output tray- all as one continuous part. The output bail itself can be rotated to an open and close position, and removed or installed all with one hand. In addition, if the output bail happened to be accidentally impacted by an astronaut while they are floating through the module, it was design with a geometry and material which allows for flexibility and maintenance of mechanical strength. The input tray handle was also designed to be telescoping such that it could be opened and closed with one hand, and would collapse, instead of break, if inadvertently impacted by an astronaut as they move through a module. Once again, snap features on the handle were 3D integrated in the part, as opposed to needing separate parts. This is all due to the design freedom, flexibility, and material selection afforded by HP’s MJF technology.
Who worked on the project?
Ronald Stevens: R & D Manager, HP Inc. Gareth Kelly: Lead Systems Engineer, HP Inc. Lacey Haines: WW Campaign & Strategic Media Lead, HP Inc. Annette Friskopp, VP & GM Specialty Printing Systems, HP Inc.
View the project video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b4qtp47a39h1nid/HP_EnvyISSPrinter_Casestudy_042618_JB_V2f_Master%20%281%29.mp4?dl=0
