By Nur Ellyza Binti Abd Rahman*, Azhri Azhar*, Murtadha Bazli , Kevin Bielawski , Kasun Karunanayaka, Adrian David Cheok
In our daily life, we use the basic five senses to see, touch, hear, taste and smell. By utilizing some of
these senses concurrently, multisensory interfaces create immersive and playful experiences, and as a
result, it is becoming a popular topic in the academic research. Virtual Food Court (Kjartan Nordbo,
et. al.,2015), Meta Cookie (Takuji Narumi, et. al.,2010) and Co-dining (Jun Wei, et. al., 2012)
represent few interesting prior works in the field. Michel et al. (2015) revealed that dynamic changes
of the weight of the cutleries, influence the user perception and enjoyment of the food. The heavier
the weight of the utensils, would enhance the flavour. In line with that, we present a new multisensory
dining interface, called ‘Magnetic Dining Table and Magnetic Foods’.
‘Magnetic Dining Table and Magnetic Foods’ introduces new human-food interaction experiences by
controlling utensils and food on the table such as modify weight, levitate, move, rotate and
dynamically change the shapes (only for food). The proposed system is divided into two parts;
controlling part and controlled part. The controlling part consist of three components that are 1)
Dining Table, 2) Array of electromagnet and 3) Controller circuit and controlled part consist of two
components; 1) Magnetic Utensils and 2) Magnetic Foods. An array of electromagnet will be placed
underneath the table and the controller circuit will control the field that produce by each of the
electromagnet and indirectly will control the utensils and food on the table. For making an edible
magnetic food, ferromagnetic materials like iron, and iron oxides (Alexis Little, 2016) will be used.
We expect that this interface will modify taste and smell sensations, food consumption behaviours,
and human-food interaction experiences positively.