Flyables: Exploring 3D Interaction Spaces for Levitating Tangibles

Recent advances in technology and miniaturization allow the building of self-levitating tangible interfaces. This includes flying tangibles, which extend the mid-air interaction space from 2D to 3D. While a number of theoretical concepts about interaction with levitating tangibles were previously investigated by various researchers, a user-centered evaluation of the presented interaction modalities has attracted only minor attention from prior research. We present Flyables, a system adjusting flying tangibles in 3D space to enable interaction between users and levitating tangibles. Interaction concepts were evaluated in a user study(N=17), using quadcopters as operable levitating tangibles. Three different interaction modalities are evaluated to collect quantitative data and qualitative feedback. Our findings show preferred user interaction modalities using Flyables. We conclude our work with a discussion and future research within the domain of human-drone interaction.