Things that hover: interaction with tiny battery-less robots on desktop

This paper presents computationally and physically augmented desktop objects - “Things that hover” - that is capable of moving autonomously on desktop, and discusses about technical mechanisms, future possible interaction styles and applications based on this architecture. A goal of the design is to create self-moving robotic modules on top of a flat surface. Integrating lightweight piezoelectric air-blow actuators and contact-less power providing technology from desktop surface, tiny robots can hover and control the direction of movement without any battery, which illustrates that our approach is practically feasible. Keywords Interactive devices, piezo actuator, microblower, surface computing, hovercraft ACM Classification Keywords H.5.2 Information Interfaces and Presentation: User interfaces General Terms Experimentation 

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Takashi Miyaki, Yong Ding, Behnam Banitalebi, Michael Beigl
• Keywords: CHI 2011, Human Computer Interaction, Robotic Modules, Technical Mechanisms, Tiny Robots