Team Leader
Amanda Lacy
Texas A&M University
Computer Science
aklacy@tamu.edu
Project Type
Research
Who Can Join
Faculty, Staff/Postdoctoral Scholars, Graduate Students, Masters Students, Undergraduate Students
Project Description
Qualifications- Junior or Senior
Experience creating/modifying iPad appsYou must commit to 10 hours per week, please don’t apply if you cannot meet this requirement. If you have time this summer, you can ‘bank’ hours working remotely so that you can have more flexibility during the semester. You will be required to log the hours that you work.
Please start your email subject line with “Aggie Research Touch Screen” + your name
This group will be programming an integrated human-computer interaction system. Two other groups “Tactile VR with a magnetic stylus” and “3D printing and CAD for accessible technology” will be building the core components for the user to feel the proprioceptive and tactile parts.
This group’s goal is to build the tools for app creation to augment a touch-screen system with tactile buttons 3D-printed on a touch screen surface. For example, tactile ‘buttons’ could be printed onto the edge of a sheet of tempered glass. The program will allow users to feel for these raised buttons. When they find a button, they think they want, they single tap to get audible feedback about the button’s identity. When they want to activate the button, they double tap. This system must be compatible with VoiceOver on iPad. Ideally, it consumes minimal space in the touch-sensitive part of the screen. These buttons would straddle the edge of the display extending onto the edge border area where no visual information is displayed. For a good introduction to the ‘why’ of this project (beyond accessibility) see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txofQez_HQY&t=7s
While the inspiration for this work is non-visual accessibility, we want you to think beyond this to meet everyone’s needs.
Team Needs
Application building in iOS and you should become familiar with VoiceOver.
Special Opportunities
You will get the chance to work on a new type of interface that integrates the sense of touch with the capabilities of the touch screen.