Cutting-Edge Designers 2007

Jeff Salazar, Art Sandoval, and Alex Rochat

Design Director, Engineering Director, and Lead Designer, Lunar Design

A team of product designers and engineers at Palo Alto (Calif.)-based Lunar Design, led by Jeff Salazar, Art Sandoval, and Alex Rochat, applied haptic, or 3D touch-sensation, technology from giant industrial-training simulators (licensed from Force Dimension) to a video-game controller. The result is the Falcon, a compact device for PCs that allows players to experience textures and a truly immersive experience. The Falcon has three robotic arms, a base that houses the "guts," or motors, that drive the controller's movements, and a handle with a round, ball-like grip, called an end effector. The handle can be fitted with different grips, such as a gun for first-person shooter games. The arms of the device rotate and bend to mimic the sensations within a game, such as rolling over bumps or struggling through viscous liquid. At the 2006 E3 gaming conference, the respected gaming Web site IGN named the Falcon, manufactured by Novint Technologies and released this month (via online sales) and hitting store shelves in August?, as "Best Gear." It beat out the popular Nintendo Wii wand and the PlayStation 3 controller for the honor. But it’s not just fun and games: Lunar’s designers recently designed an attachment for the Falcon that features a realistic syringe and can be used to teach injection skills to medical students.