Abstract
Motion platforms are used to increase the realism of virtual interaction. Unfortunately, their size and weight is proportional to the size of what they actuate. We present haptic turk, a different approach to motion platforms that is light and mobile. The key idea is to replace motors and mechanical components with humans. All haptic turk setups consist of a player who is supported by one or more turkers. The player enjoys an interactive experience, such as a flight simulation. The motion in the player’s experience is generated by the turkers who manually lift, tilt, and push the player’s limbs or torso. To get the timing and force right, timed motion instructions in a format familiar from rhythm games are displayed on turkers’ mobile devices, which they attach to the player’s body. We demonstrate a range of installations based on mobile phones, projectors, and head-mounted displays. In our user study, participants rated not only the experience as player as enjoyable (6.1/7), but also the experience as a turker (4.4/7). The approach of leveraging humans allows us to deploy our approach anytime anywhere, as we demonstrate by experimentally deploying at an art festival in the Nevada desert.