To accompany feature ‘How to feel objects that aren’t there’

SCIENCE

Before reading:

1.    What is sound?

2.    Pushing a button is just one way of using an electronic device. What other ways can you interact with electronics?

During reading:

1.    What does haptics refer to?

2.    Describe how a sound wave is different from a wave in the ocean.

3.    What are mechanoreceptors?

4.    What’s the highest frequency the average human ear can hear?

5.    How can a sound trigger your sense of touch?

6.    Name two of the most common technologies that use ultrasound today.

7.    For how long have physicists known there was a connection between sound and touch?

8.    What is an acoustic tractor beam?

9.    Name some different kinds of textures that researchers hope to virtually create using ultrahaptics.

10.   Name at least four possible uses for ultrahaptics that were described in the article.

After reading:

1.    How could ultrahaptics change the way you use a smartphone or a computer? Be creative!

2.    Imagine other cool uses for this technology. Which “tools” in your life could it make safer, more convenient or perhaps just more fun to use?