Equipment list

  • Four vibrating foot ‘shakers’. One person can use up to four foot shakers at once. The shakers are used by gently placing the ball of a bare foot on one shaker and the heel of the foot on another. The shakers are not designed to take the weight of a person so a certain amount of care must be taken.

Four Vibrotactile foot shakers

Foot shakers

  • Two vibrating hand ‘shakers’. These are used by placing either the palm of the hand or one finger gently on the spindle. These are not designed to be weight bearing
A wooden table top. Behind it is a green empty plastic chair. To each side of the chair is a vibrotactile hand shaker. Below the table top is a square hole in the raised stage. In the hole are four vibrotactile foot shakers
Hand shakers
  • Mixer: routes the desired signals from musical instruments to the shakers
  • Limiters: these prevent excessive signal levels being sent to the shakers; again this is to safely control the amount of vibration which is experienced by the user
  • Power amplifiers: these amplify the signal from the mixer to provide power to drive the shakers

Good to know

  • The system is used within a raised stage. This is purely to allow users to place their feet comfortably upon the shakers, which are approximately 400mm high:
Raised wooden staging area surrounded by a silver coloured balustrade, containing three green chairs, a table with an electronic keyboard on a central table, a black guitar and a brown and white bass guitar. Below the central table are four vibrotactile shakers.
School-ready vibrotactile resource
  • We deliver, install and remove the equipment completely free of charge. All you need to provide is space for it to live for the duration of the loan; ideally a practice room, small classroom or performance space approximately 3m x3m. The staging area can be reduced to around 2m x 3m for even smaller rooms.
  • A music teacher is available to work with you and can travel to visit you for several sessions to support staff in using the system or to work directly with users.
  • When the system is set up in a new venue, the vibration of the shakers must be measured to ensure that the vibration is within safe limits
  • The shakers can be used at floor level as shown here but this may become tiring after a while, although the head of the shaker can be tilted to a comfortable angle: