Holding the Whip-Hand

YourGlove: a device for remote hand holding

Computer mediated communication (CMC) systems, as with the great majority of interactive systems, rely on their users’ ability to encode and decode messages in sight and sound. They are however notoriously problematic for implicit communication and fostering a sense of intimacy between couples. We describe the design concept and construction of a device intended to exploit existing behaviour an...

Reading, writing, and the whip.

Cracking the Whip to Make Gasoline

Shape of a cracking whip.

The crack of a whip is produced by a shock wave created by the supersonic motion of the tip of the whip in the air. A simple dynamical model for the propagation and acceleration of waves in the motion of whips is presented. The respective contributions of tension, tapering, and boundary conditions in the acceleration of an initial impulse are studied theoretically and numerically.

On Animating Whip-type Motions

This paper presents algorithmic methods to generate progressive, whip-type motions, characteristic of experienced humans in high speed athletic activities like throwing and striking. In deriving these methods, we deduce boundary conditions for dynamic quantities by analyzing the motion of a two-link system. A control algorithm based on cascading gains is introduced and is shown to be e cient wh...