Building reconfigurable passive haptic interfaces on demand using off-the-shelf construction bricks

Although passive haptic interfaces have been shown to be capable to enhance the user’s sense of presence in Mixed Reality experiences, their use is still constrained by the need to rely on exact replicas of virtual objects or on custom-made devices mimicking the original ones. Unfortunately, the former are not flexible enough in terms of reconfigurability, whereas the latter may be difficult to reproduce. To tackle these issues, this paper explores the possibility to build passive haptic interfaces using off-the-shelf toy construction bricks. Bricks can be assembled to provide the intended feedback in more than one task. Moreover, they may be reassembled in another application to mimic completely new objects and support totally different tasks.