Wednesday 8 August 2012

Puppet suit

It would be interesting to create a full-body suit covered in hooks and wires, such that a person could be fully lifted off the ground and manipulated as if as a puppet. Ideally, sufficient hooks and writes would be built into the suit to allow manipulation of every skeletal muscle (with the exception of hand, foot and face muscles, which would likely require too much detail). The wires would be computer-controlled, or human controlled via a computer interface.

Why would such a suit be useful:
  • The experience itself, of being completely relaxed but moved around in three dimensions would be interesting.
  • The suit could be combined with virtual reality to enhance the puppet experience (or to enhance a virtual reality experience). For example, the person could be manipulated to feel as though they are walking through a virtual world.
  • The suit could potentially be used to stimulate muscle control recovery in people recovering from physical injury, aiding rehabilitation.
  • The suit could be used by gymnasts, dancers, martial artists and other sports people in perfecting moves.
  • Smaller versions could be used for stimulating physical learning in babies and infants.
Puppet glove

Although the detail required to manipulate hand muscles would probably preclude the inclusion of wires controlling the hands in the full puppet suit, puppet gloves could be created to apply the above uses specificaly to the hands. This could be useful in aiding muscians practise fingering.

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