The current state of VR technology focuses on creating an immersive experience through sight and hearing. However, as of today, there has not been a VR device that stimulates the jaw, even though eating and food are such integral parts of the human experience.

At the 2023 MIT Reality Hack, we created a futuristic jaw haptic device that simulates eating in XR. When a user 'eats' a particular food item in the experience the tension in the springs are adjusted automatically based on the texture of the food item. This simulates the extent of difficulty or ease in chewing different items in an XR experience.

The haptic jaw was built in Unity. When the VR controllers interact with a food item, the program sends a bluetooth message via MIT’s SDK The Singularity. The SDK connects with the microcontroller on the back of the harness, which spins the servo motors attached to the front of the harness. As a result, the springs attached to the jaw harness are pulled, creating tension based on the food item consumed in the XR experience. 3 different tension modes are set up for the prototype VR game, simulating 3 different textures of foods.

Our project was selected for the Shark Tank competition within the MIT Reality Hack! This taught us how a real-life pitch could to be framed and presented most effectively.