Poster: The Fwobble: Continuous audio-haptic feedback for balance control

In this paper we present a novel interface called the Fwobble, designed to investigate the role of multimodal feedback in balance control. The interface is designed as a traditional wobble board enhanced with actuators that provide haptic feedback and an ac-celerometer that tracks the acceleration of the board converted to tilt angle. Using this board, an experiment was conducted in order to assess the role of auditory and haptic feedback in facilitating balance control. For this purpose, a casual balance game was designed, where players were asked to balance a penguin standing on a rotating ice floe. Results of the experiment show that feedback does not significantly facilitates balance control. Moreover, although all players enjoyed interactive with the game using the board, they were quite divided when evaluating the role of the audio-haptic feedback. Indeed, some players found it enjoyable and usable, while others found it distracting.