WEBVTT - Groovy Moon Boots 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.280 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:15.000 Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:17.680 podcast that looks at the future and says these boots 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:21.600 are made for walking. I'm Jonathan Strickland, and I'm Joe McCormick, 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:24.000 and our other host, Lauren voc obamb is still unto 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:26.200 the weather, but she will be back with us next time. 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.120 I'm quite sure. Yeah, pretty pretty pretty positive on that. 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:31.280 And don't don't worry about her. She's doing fine. She 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:33.640 just got this scratching through. It's a bit of a 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:37.400 shame because she's the one who actually pitched this episode topic, 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:39.640 wasn't she. I think so so, Jonathan, I have a 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.320 question for you. Asked me, did you remever did you 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:45.280 ever own a pair of moon boots? I I can 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:49.000 honestly say, with on conviction that I have never owned 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.239 a pair of moon boots. You're aware of what I'm 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:56.080 talking about. That not not the actual boots that astronauts wear. 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:58.200 I'm so you mean the style of boots known as 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:00.960 moon boots. Yeah. No, I I had never owned a 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:04.280 pair of those. I have warned things that I suspect 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:09.840 we're equivalent to moon boots, at least in their the 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:13.800 clunkiness factor. But I personally have never owned any Oh 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:15.720 that may be what I had when I was a kid. 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:18.280 I had some puffy boots that I referred to as 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:20.839 moon boots. I don't know if moon boots is a brand, 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:24.520 that a brand. Well anyway, I don't know one way 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:26.560 or another. But I had some puffy boots that were 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:28.480 quite beloved to me, and I wore them out in 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:31.400 the snow, and I wore them out in the summer 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:35.840 also just because I thought they looked cool. Wow. Okay, well, 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:38.280 you know it just tells me a lot about you, Joe, 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:41.000 and and be proud of who you are. But we 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:45.120 wanted to talk today about a specific type of of 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:51.640 approach to designing shoes for astronauts specifically, but there are 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:57.040 implications beyond that that addressed some problems that they've encountered 0:01:57.080 --> 0:02:01.000 in the past. So let's let's talk about why we 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:04.640 would even have this conversation in the first place. What 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.480 is the big issue? What is the problem astronauts face. 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:13.840 The problem is astronauts are always too intoxicated to walk 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:17.080 around properly. No that's not true, No, not at all. 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:19.920 That we we are. But however, if you were to 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:23.440 watch certain videos, you might get that impression. Because Jonathan, 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:26.440 did you watch the astronauts falling over? So did I? Even? 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:28.839 I even have a little little note that I put 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:33.440 on there. Okay, So Joe decided to kind of watch 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:35.919 this video and then he shared the video in our 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:42.920 notes of astronauts having difficulty standing upright while walking about 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:46.680 on the Moon's surface. And that's really what this episode 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:51.600 is all about, Like, how can people design uh a 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:56.720 system that allows astronauts to walk around on a surface 0:02:56.800 --> 0:03:01.200 like the Moon's surface without the danger constantly falling over, 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:05.840 because based upon the YouTube video you've sent, it looks 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:10.480 like that is a common issue. Well, it's kind of funny, 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:12.919 isn't it, Like they walking can be hard when you're 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:15.160 on the moon, you know, yeah, I I wrote. My 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:19.079 comment on the video was this is majestic. You really 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:21.519 get the sense of achievement and grandeur as you watch 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:24.560 chubby figures fall about in the dust. It really is 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:28.320 like watching little toddlers fall over in a sandbox a lot. 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:31.800 But it's not the fault of the astronauts. It's just 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:35.960 really hard to get around in bulky spacesuits. And once 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:38.040 you're down, it looks like it's pretty challenging to get 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:40.280 back up again. Yeah, they kind of try all these 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:42.680 little moves to sort of pop back up, but they 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:45.720 keep falling over and they look like crazy breakdancing moves 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:47.520 at some points. Because there's one point where you see 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:51.720 a guy who is holding himself up in a horizontal position, 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:56.520 like like parallel to the Moon's surface, on his hands 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:59.240 and just trying to push himself up so they can 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:03.120 get his feet up underneath himself. It's pretty incredible. And 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:05.920 of course this isn't just the Moon. This is presumably 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:09.200 true for other space environments like Mars and other foreign 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:11.720 planets as well, where asteroids as well. That kind of 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:15.080 probably even harder on asteroids, the lack of i mean 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:19.279 almost you know, no negligible gravity. Yeah yeah, so, uh 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:23.360 so space suits are bulky their pressurized environments, and they 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:27.479 can tend to cause a feeling of perceptual segregation from 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:30.280 the outer atmosphere. You know, you're like you're living in 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:34.960 this interior world and just sort of vaguely bubble buoying through. Yeah, 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:39.400 like your perception is thrown off. Yeah, so they have 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:41.480 to be bulky, of course, because if you know, they 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:45.800 have all these built in protections, shielding regulatory systems. But 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.719 this often leaves the astronaut with a sort of limited 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:52.360 ability to sense their surroundings both by sight and by touch. 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:55.440 Right and then with that reduced gravity that I would 0:04:55.440 --> 0:05:00.720 imagine adds another element of uncertainty and and and kind 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:04.400 of clumsiness to the whole thing. I imagine that walking 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:06.400 around on the Moon is a lot like have you 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:08.520 ever gone up a set of stairs that you've gone 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:11.800 up and down a thousand times and you're not really 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:14.640 paying attention, and in your mind you're thinking there's either 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:18.479 one more or one fewer step than actually are there 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:22.720 on the stairs, And that is a a really alarming 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:25.880 thing to have happened to you that moment. You either 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:29.000 take an extra step on a stair that's not there, 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.960 or you fail to take that extra step and you 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:36.760 miss a step that actually is there. I argue often 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:39.800 that it's worse going down than going up, Like I've 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.000 tried to step down at the bottom of a set 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:43.920 of stairs when I thought there was one more to go, 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:46.919 and it is the most jarring experience to try and 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:50.600 step down where you cannot because there is solid floor there, though, 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.120 I imagine it is much more jarring to step down 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:56.560 thinking you should be experiencing about you know, point eight 0:05:56.600 --> 0:05:58.919 more g s than you are, right, and then you 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:01.080 end up falling over as a result because you have 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:04.440 either underestimated or overestimated. You couldn't really tell when you 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.560 were making contact. You didn't really know when you could 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:10.480 shift your weight, and so you either do so prematurely 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:12.560 or you're not quite ready to do so when you 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:16.840 need to. All of these factors come into play, and 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:21.560 it explains why we get this wonderful sequence of astronauts 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:24.360 falling over as if they're just completely helpless on the 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:26.920 surface of the moon. But of course, when you were 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:30.480 on a literal moonwalk falling over, despite how funny the 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:32.720 video is, that's not a good idea. You don't want 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:35.960 to be doing that. Number One, space suits are pretty 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:38.520 well shielded, but there's always a chance that you could 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:42.040 damage or puncture something vital. That's just pretty much everything 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:44.640 on the space suit. Yeah. Then on top of that, 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:48.040 there's just the waste of limited time and oxygen resources 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:51.520 lying stuck on the ground like this marshmallow man turtle thing. Right, 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:56.040 If you have a specific set of goals for your moonwalk. 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:58.200 You don't want to get stuck for ten minutes trying 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:01.800 to get up. Yeah, becausebviously, whenever any of that stuff 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:05.040 gets planned out back on Earth in the initial stages 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:08.240 where you've you've got your mission parameter set, you're gonna 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:11.240 build in extra time. Right, You're never going to say, 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:14.440 let's let's really cut this to the wire, right that 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:17.160 that makes no sense. However, if you fall over, then 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:19.880 you start eating up that extra time that was built in, 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:22.560 and and this is a real concern. Yeah, So the 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:24.679 story that made us want to do this episode today 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:27.560 is about a particular response to this kind of problem. 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:32.640 So the story refers to some work done by M I. T. S. 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:37.440 Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics or Aero Astro and the 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:41.000 Charles Stark Draper Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I love the 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:46.480 fact that's in Stark Labs. Yes it is, but they're 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:50.600 not that Stark because he works alone. It's a Stark contrast, 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:54.600 I imagine it is. Now. So they've been working on 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:59.760 this potential solution and it is space boots with environmental 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:04.280 swerves and embedded haptic motors. So it works like this. 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:07.160 Imagine you are an astronaut on the surface of the 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:10.600 Moon and you're shoveling up some barrels of lunar regular 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:13.000 to transport back to Earth, where it has become a 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:17.280 wildly popular flavoring agent in hot cuisine, of course. But 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.480 of course you are walking through a shallow dip on 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.200 the lunar surface and you feel a sudden vibration on 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:26.240 the outside toe of your left foot, so you stop, 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:28.400 you take a step back, You look down, you see, oh, 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:31.040 there it is. It's a rock, or maybe it's a 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:35.040 little room bus sized robotic rover sitting deactivated in your way, 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:38.520 whatever it is. Having avoided tripping over it, you go 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:41.720 around scoop up some more of the ultra fine particles 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:45.679 of cash money. Pretty simple, right, So you don't have 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:48.600 to depend on your eyes. You've got a tactle sensation, 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:52.640 this vibration that warns you to stop moving and reach 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.120 out your course. And that's exactly what we mean when 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:58.040 we talk about haptic feedback. If you're not familiar with 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.960 the term haptics, it really means engaging your sense of 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:06.760 touch in a way that gives you more information about something, 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:10.319 whether it's your environment, or a virtual environment or something 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:14.160 along those lines. A very basic example of this is 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:17.439 you likely have a smartphone or cell phone that has 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:19.600 a little motor that vibrates when you get a call 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:24.280 or a text. That's a haptic feedback system telling you, hey, 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:27.520 you've got an alert. So maybe it doesn't make an 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:31.280 audible alert so that you know if you're at work, 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:34.720 you're not having your phone go grouper or whatever. Well, 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:37.440 here's one. If you have a touch screen keypad on 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:41.559 your phone, very likely the phone vibrates ever so gently 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.280 when you correctly press a key, so that so that 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:46.560 you know you did hit the key instead of sort 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:49.840 of going off the side and not registering the the 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:52.920 input right, or that you just start typing you know, 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.040 h h h h h h h for hello, because 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:59.400 you haven't figured out if you're actually, you know, making 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:01.520 that contact with the screen or not right. And I 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:05.520 found out when when my phone's power saving features go 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:08.720 on when it's low on battery and it stops doing 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:13.040 that that response. Yeah, I find it disturbing when I'm 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:15.200 typing with my fingers, I'm like, wait a minute, am 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:16.959 I am I typing? I don't know if the letters 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.120 are going Yeah, I've gotten used to it. I had 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:24.240 turned mine off when I was at home, um after 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:27.120 a certain time, Like I could, I could create parameters 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:30.280 of when haptic feedback was turned on or turned off, 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:33.840 and that was specifically so that I didn't disturb either 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:36.920 my wife or my dog whenever I decided to look 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:39.559 on something on my phone and look something gup, because 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:41.760 every every time I would type, you get this little 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:45.959 haptic buzz and it would be distracting. But I also 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:50.080 found it very difficult to navigate on my phone without 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:53.120 it because without that feedback to reassure me that yes, 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:57.600 indeed your touch has been has been registered, I felt 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:02.360 like I wasn't properly activating my phone. So haptic is 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:06.040 a very powerful kind of disciplines of a very powerful 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:10.320 technology or strategy. I guess you could say to engage 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:13.920 our senses in another way and give us additional information. Yeah, 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:16.839 it's a it's a way of repurposing information that you 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:19.120 would get through one sense and feeding it through a 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:24.040 different one. So in July of this year, researchers presented 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:29.320 their findings on on these haptic feedback boots boots for 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:33.440 space at the International Conference on Human Computer interaction, and 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:38.320 specifically they've been studying what types of sensations applied to 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:41.280 which regions of the foot do the best job of 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:45.040 keeping people from tripping over things, or actually that that 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:47.200 part would be inferred, because really what they're looking for 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:51.360 first is like when people can feel the sensation and 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:53.480 how well they can feel it right, and and can 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:56.640 they identify from what direction it's it is coming? So 0:11:56.720 --> 0:11:59.440 that way, like if we were to have the outer 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:05.479 left edge of your foot, uh, buzz, would that translate 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:08.800 in your mind, Oh, there's something forward and to the 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:11.480 left of me that I need to look out for. Yeah, uh, 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:14.080 And and there are lots of different options for how 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:16.679 you could provide haptic feature right. So you know, our 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:21.360 nervous systems are kind of quirky for reasons of evolutionary happenstance, 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:24.439 and so they respond better to some stimuli than to others. 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:29.000 So they actually looked into what works best. So scientists 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:33.040 Alison Gibson, Andrea Webb and Leah Sterling conducted this study 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:35.720 to find out exactly how good people are at detecting 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:39.640 different kinds of sensations on their feet under various conditions. 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:43.040 On my feet, my feet were tingling reading about this. Yeah, 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:46.240 and it's interesting to hear about the experiments because they 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:50.000 included everything from kind of a straightforward approach where they said, 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:51.640 are you gonna feel a buzz? I need you to 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:55.000 tell me, like, on a scale of maybe one to ten, 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:57.880 how strong was that buzz and where on your foot 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:00.360 did you feel it? And then they start and making 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:03.680 it a little more complicated by making people like do 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:07.920 things while they're administering the buzzes and try and see like, well, 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:12.400 can they still accurately describe the intensity and the location 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:15.280 because this obviously that would be important. You know, if 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:18.120 you're walking around the surface of the moon, you're probably 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.320 not just completely focused on how are my feet feeling 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:24.079 right now? No, you're trying to get that delicious regulars 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:26.640 back to your back to your transfer. Emerald will not 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:30.440 wait for his for his moon spice bam. So if 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:33.640 you want to look up their their presentation, it's it's 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:37.920 called user abilities in detecting vibro tactle signals on the 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:43.079 feet under varying attention loads. Vibro Tactle is amazing, what 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:46.240 a great word, And yeah, varying attention loads obviously that's 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:48.400 the reference to what I was talking about earlier. But 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:53.280 you know, sometimes you have to create some distractions, nothing 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:57.640 of real like importance or or urgency, but rather just 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:01.880 something to occupy the person's mind. So that example is 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:05.080 one of the independent variables they tested attention state whether 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:09.000 you're distracted by other stuff. Another one was vibration locations 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:12.559 of tow or heel in step or outside, etcetera. And 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:15.720 then the third was vibration signal type. And this is 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:19.080 not correct, but I wish this meant good vibrations versus 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:23.920 bad vibrations bad vibes manuh no. In actuality, the different 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:30.000 vibration types were high, low, increasing and decreasing, increasing and decreasing. 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:32.760 Matter because of something I'll get to in a bit, well, 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:35.160 well before before we get into that, just for a 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:37.400 clarification on my own part, because this was something that 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:39.520 I missed when I was reading it. When they say 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:44.440 high and low, are they talking about frequency or intensity? Oh? Well, 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:49.880 actually I think it's intensity, But I'm not positive because 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:52.440 I was it's intensity. I would think so too, because 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:54.640 to me that would just mean like, is the motor 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:57.400 vibrating at a greater intense stealer as in, is it 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:00.360 making heart of great bigger vibrations is the ample alitude 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:03.760 increased as opposed to is the frequency increase. I would 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:07.120 imagine the same thing. That was my interpretation, but I 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:11.640 didn't actually read Yeah, okay, co uh So these could 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:14.520 be delivered to six different places on each foot and 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:17.960 that results in twenty four unique different kinds of signals. 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:20.880 And then they also, like you said, they ran a 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:24.000 distraction test, so they were like, let me know if 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:26.320 you can feel anything on your feet and uh and 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:28.960 what it is, where it's coming in, and what it 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:32.080 feels like. But then also do that while I show 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:33.880 you a random number and you start to count up 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:38.720 by threes Jonathan twenty four, thirty thirty three, thirty six. 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:40.560 I gave you an easy one. Let me get a 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:43.040 hard no no, no, no no, don't don't have a 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:47.760 liberal arts major. Uh So, But it turns out even 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:50.120 with a pretty simple test like this subject has had 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:54.800 some difficulty. They they had trouble identifying when the vibration, 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:58.440 for example, was steadily increasing, so that that's not just 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:01.800 the on and off high and low sensation, but when 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:06.760 it's slowly getting more intense and even in the undistracted condition, 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:08.680 so even when they're not trying to do the counting. 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.160 People did not do a great job of detecting when 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:16.400 vibration was decreasing in intensity. Uh. And also no surprise here, 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:18.760 but some parts of the foot are just more sensitive 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:21.080 than others. You know, the middle of the outside of 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:25.240 the foot was pretty dumb. By the way, A little side. Now, 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:27.720 do you ever play that game where you touch somebody's 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:31.040 back with different numbers of fingers and asked them how 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:34.280 many it is you should you should agree beforehand with 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.760 the person you're playing, right, there's consent is absolutely don't 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:41.400 don't surprise somebody with this game. I've I've played variations 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:43.400 of that, like as a kid. There's also the I'm 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:45.680 gonna draw something on your back, tell me what it 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:50.320 was you I drew and I, uh, it's difficult. Yeah, 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:53.200 people don't realize how dumb their backs are. The tactle 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:55.440 neurons back there is just I don't know, you know, 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.480 I'm touching your touch somebody with three fingers and they're like, 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:02.160 oh one right, yeah, let's say. And so you think 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:05.000 about it, like, there are definitely gonna be areas of 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:09.160 the foot that will be more responsive to to haptic 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:13.600 feedback than others. And when they were talking about increasing 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:16.920 or decreasing the intensity, I could easily imagine that being 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:20.880 a difficult thing to uh, to detect even so much. 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:23.119 Is like, even if I have a phone in my 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:26.680 hand and I'm increasing the motor intensity until you get 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:31.320 to like unless it unless it does does it in 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:35.040 big jumps, the differences can be fairly subtle, And then 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:36.800 I think, well, what if I felt that on my foot, 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.879 and what if that were the important determining factor. Like, 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:48.600 as I approach a potential stumbling block, the intensity increases. Uh, 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:52.280 if it is to settle, then that becomes kind of useless. 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:54.439 It just is going to be a constant distraction as 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:56.960 I look around, and maybe I can't identify what the 0:17:56.960 --> 0:17:59.000 thing is because it's not quite close enough for me 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:02.880 to notice that it is something I'm going to stumble over. Uh. 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:04.880 And then next thing, you know, I start to ignore 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:09.119 this this buzzing because so frequently it's not helpful, and 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:11.800 then I'm falling all over again. That exactly is a 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:14.280 problem people are worried about. Okay, so how do you 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:17.159 keep people from tuning out the feedback? Yeah, you have 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:20.720 to have it be urgent enough that it's meaningful, but 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:26.640 not so urgent that it is that it's misleading right there. 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:29.879 It's a delicate balance, but you can see where it 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:32.520 could become really useful if you have the sensors in 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:37.320 a boot and you have the alert happen where it's 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:41.240 not gonna be so sensitive that it's it's it's set 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:44.880 off by everything, because then you're just like, well, all 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:46.359 I can tell you is being on the moon is 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:50.000 crappy because all my feet are just buzzing. These dogs 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:53.879 are buzzing. In other words, that's an alternate title for 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:58.000 this episode. Yes, so of course this technology it's still 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:00.880 got a lot of ground to cover as the study, 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:05.439 but a lot of moon ground. Because while a simple 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:08.760 on off vibration might be somewhat helpful, one thing about 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:12.640 the world around us is it's best represented by continuous data, 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:16.000 not on off analogue rather than digital. Yeah, so the 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:19.639 the increasing and decreasing quantities would probably be the best 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:24.399 way to represent something like proximity or even like the 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:27.439 the size of the potential obstacle, because again we have 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:30.240 you have such a limited field of view inside a 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:33.040 space helmet, right like it cuts off your field of 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:38.680 view significantly. Uh, you might want to use intensity to 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:42.360 indicate perhaps not the distance to the obstacle, but perhaps 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:45.760 the the size of the obstacle, like whether or not 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:48.000 it's a sizeable rock that's ahead of you that you 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:51.760 might stumble over, or a drop down that's been you know, 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:56.280 that's your boot has uh detected where you know you 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:59.240 don't want to have that next step forward be four 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:03.320 inches lower than what you had anticipated. Yeah, exactly. So 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:07.760 the mn T news piece that covered this particular research also, 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:10.560 I thought this was interesting. Spoke to a doctor, Shirley 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:15.440 right Dick, professor of Health and Kinesiology at Perdue, who 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:19.960 specializes She specializes in like falling down. Basically, so do I, 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:23.159 but not not. I don't have the credentials. I just 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:28.119 have the experience America's Funniest Home Videos professor. And but 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:30.920 she pointed out that this would be useful for more 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:33.800 than just astronauts. I think that that's clear. But for who, 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:37.680 Well she gave the example of how about firefighters. So 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:40.920 for firefighters, you go into a burning building, there's flames, 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:44.399 there's smoke. Environmental navigation inside a burning building is a 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:47.399 well known problem. Uh, And so this could be very 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.920 useful for them too, And I imagine maybe deep sea divers. 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:53.879 Maybe you know there there are lots of conditions where 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:57.080 you don't want to be tripping over stuff and your 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:00.240 personal visibility is going to be limited. And the even 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:03.600 beyond that, we started talking and in fact articles have 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:06.119 also been pointing this out. It's not just Joe and 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:08.520 I have come up with this idea, but we've talked 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:11.440 about how these sort of haptic feedback systems could be 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:16.360 used for people in everyday situations, particularly people who may 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:21.520 have uh problems with their vision. Yeah, exactly, So one 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:25.120 obvious application would be for people with visual impairments. So 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:28.359 at a certain level, this is harder than it sounds, 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:31.480 because you can give somebody a vibration in their shoe 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:34.480 if they're about to kick something, But how do you 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:38.840 communicate more complex navigational information about a person surroundings without 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:42.040 visual information. The thing about the astronauts is they should 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:44.719 be able to see generally what's going on around them. 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:46.840 The problem is they might not notice there's a rock 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:52.159 at their foot. But but imagine you're completely blind and 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:55.200 you're trying to use haptic feedback to give people navigational 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:58.760 information about what's around them. You can you can give 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:01.400 a kind of dumb and form, but it gets more 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:05.920 difficult the more info you're trying to encode, right, So, 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:09.960 so indicating that there's a possible surface that you're going 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:14.160 to come into contact with right there, that's that's one thing. 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:17.879 But to get to a level like the way, how 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:20.040 about there's a street and there are cars on it 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:22.520 right right. One of the things I thought about when 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:25.800 we started talking about this is it's a a step 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:30.240 toward spiky sense, but perhaps a better representation would even 0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:34.080 be Daredevil's heightened senses. That Daredevil's capable even though he's blind. 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:38.879 Matt Murdoch spoiler alert is blind, he's capable of sensing 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:46.679 through this this crazy heightened ability to almost see vibrations 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:48.920 like he can he can sense sound at such a 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:51.680 level that he can and he knows shapes of things 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:53.880 and whether something is coming towards him or moving away 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:58.959