ViRUM

ViRUM is an interactive, consumer wearable product that connects to a user's phone and simulates the feeling of the music's vibrations as if attending a concert. What sets ViRUM apart from other haptic wearables is its inflatable silicone layer, which is used to enhance the vibration to more accurately emulate the experience of a live concert. This project began as a Physical and Digital Fabrication assignment, and with the encouragement of my professor, my team received a grant to continue development of our product. After extensive materials research and development, a full rework of the circuitry, and creating an original jacket design, our low-fidelity prototype was very well-received at the RISE engineering and technology research Expo in April of this year. We are currently pursuing options for commercialization and our technology is Patent Pending. Special thanks to mentor Prof. Mark Sivak, and project partners Azza Borovicka-Swanson and Finn Cuccia-Fenton!

Azza Wearing ViRUM Prototype at RISE Expo

My primary responsibility throughout the development of this project has been researching, prototyping, and implementing the code, electronic components and drivers, and circuitry management. Early tests of the music input found that the raw data collected from aux cable was not representative of the music, and had little to no correlation to rhythm or bass that we were trying to emulate. After some research, it was determined that a Fast Fourier Transform could be used on the aux data to make it more representative of the music without processing delay, and the values of the generated plot (example shown in below diagram) could be mapped to the intensity of the motors, similar to a simple audio visualizer.

• Aux cord data from right channel used as analog input

• Analog input converted in time without excess processing delay into sound frequency diagram (left) using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and then divided into bins in order to more accurately represent music behavior

• Average value of each bin is then mapped to the vibration intensity of small haptic motors, so that they vibrate in beat to the music

• Bin 1 represents "Standout" portion of music, or the parts of music first noticed by many listeners, such as vocals

• Bin 2 represents Rhythm and Bass portions of music

• Bins 3 and 4 are unused, as the average value taken from these sections are not representative of the sensation of the music

• 24 motors are powered by a chain of 12 QWIIC motor driver boards, each controlling one motor representing Bin 1 and another representing Bin 2