Activities / Projects

Haptics Workshops: Building the Body: Sense & Simulation in BioMedical Science (last updated November 2011)

The LIVE Centre’s Haptics Team together with the RVC’s Widening Participation and Lifestyle Research groups have been awarded funding from the Wellcome Trust under the People Awards scheme for the project ‘Building the Body: Sense and Simulation in BioMedical Science’. The project’s main aim is to engage young people in concepts of biomedical science specifically linked to Key Stage 3 (KS3) curriculum by providing a novel way to interact with and learn about bioscience using haptic (touch) technology.

*** The 1st workshop at RVC's Camden Campus on Monday 28th November 2011 ***

Using haptic technology with a biomedical theme will brings together many potential areas of interest for young people – biology, veterinary science, computer science, innovation and invention. This will also help to encourage young people to consider STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) subjects as future careers.

The main focus of the project is to provide young people with:

Experience haptics hands on via the Haptic Cow, the Haptic Horse and the Core Skills Trainer (all simulators are currently utilised in the undergraduate curriculum at the RVC).
- Trying a hand at veterinary diagnostic skills: Is the Haptic Cow pregnant? Has the Haptic Horse got colic?
Touch and interact with simulated internal organs, gaining insight into structure and function, and ‘feeling’ the effects of certain disease processes e.g. of the reproductive, intestinal and cardiovascular systems.
- Experiencing how a pulse changes - from a mouse to an elephant, when excercising, when in shock, etc.
Work in teams to become ‘haptic developers’ using a prototyping tool (ProtoHaptic) to "build a body" (or part of a body). ProtoHaptic provides a ‘drag and drop’ interface which allows people who do not have specialist ICT skills to develop their own simple haptic simulations.
- Building haptic simulations using a new version of ProtoHaptic e.g. a cell and its organelles, the skeleton with its muscles and joints
Identify some innovative uses of the technology to address and overcome some of the challenges encountered when using more traditional methods and approaches to teaching, learning and research in biomedical and biosciences.
Present their ideas and discuss the reasons why such innovations are necessary in the modern world.

The project’s kick off meeting took place on 8th April 2011 at the RVC’s Camden campus and allowed all those in the project team to experience the ‘wow’ factor of haptics. An understanding of the technology’s potential is vital for the detailed development of the workshops. The workshops will be delivered for secondary schools in the London Borough of Camden and will be piloted with one school during 2011 and will be rolled out for several additional schools in 2012. The workshops are aimed at Key Stage 3 young people (aged 11-14), but the benefits and the results of the project will be disseminated further, for example as an interactive display at the British Library.

The cow is loose in the library!

The haptic simulators were showcased in the British Library as part of the ‘Growing Knowledge’ exhibition on 28th June 2011. In the morning students from two Camden schools attended and tried their hand at the Haptic Cow, tested their dexterity on the Core Skills Games and built virtual haptic models using ProtoHaptic. In the afternoon, the exhibition was opened to members of the public, visitors from the Wellcome Trust and British Library readers and staff.

The team at the 'Cow is loose in the library' event. Left to right: Jon Parry, Jim Cannon, Sarah Baillie, Carla Sprott, Hannah Wallace, Sarah Welby (all from the RVC) and Nora Daly (organiser from the British Library)

The Project Team: Sarah Baillie, Jon Parry, Caroline Wheeler-Jones, James Cannon, Neil Forrest, Tierney Kinnison and Julia Leewood (Secondary Consultant (Science) Achievement, London Borough of Camden).