Actuator Suit
We connected the actuator suit as well as the sensor belts via the MQTT Protocol with in-game experiences. That means, depending on what happens to your avatar within the VR Game, the suit is going to react - also your breathing will affect the size of your avatar, therefore we create an aesthetic feedback of your bodily processes.
For the construction of the suit, we recycled old motorcycle suits. It's a one-size-fits-all construct, that comes in 3 different pieces - the shoulder, the hip/waiste/leg and the arm piece. Each piece contains three types of actuators (1. inflatables, that simulate analog touch 2. Heat patches 3. EMS Electro-Stimulation), that can be triggered within the Multiplayer Experience. Depending on the level and the interaction of the player within the digital realm, different actuators are activated. Our goal is to create an immersive experience in which we raise bodily awareness through this actuator triggers and the visualization of the breath.
Shoulder Piece
Hip/Leg Piece
Arm Piece
© Kodi Körner
Suit Design
Ãœberschrift 1
We design the belt buckles as sharks, as the shark is used as a symbol for fear in one of the Levels of the Game (2B - JAWS II - Bloody bodies without Organs). They are 3D printed. We use a rubber stretch sensor to track the extension of the rip cage of the person wearing the belt. The sensor data is send by a micro controller (we are using ESP32 as they can communicate via wifi) through a local network or the internet to our broker (MQTT works with broker/subscriber logic - I visualized the set-up in the scheme below and will add a detailed explanation soon) and sends the data into the unity application.
In total, we produced 25 Sensor - one sensor for each VR.
Breathing Belt
