Quickly make a banana, a beverage, your bed frame, a spanking paddle, or even your sex partner into a touch-sensitive controller for your dildo! Synchronize the pleasurable feelings of a metal head massager with your dildo, or play your lover's body like a theremin!

Capacitive touch sensors are probably the LEAST EXPENSIVE sensor you can use in robotics. Really they only require a resistor and something conductive!

Turn Your Partner into a Sensor!

You can also find more creative ways to use capacitive touch by incorporating a partner! We simply just attached a clip to standard metal body jewelry (Melanie's ring). You can use all sorts of body piercings as conducting elements for capacitive touch sensing. Notice how proximity works!

You can create multiple variations in the intensity of you Mod's vibrational patterns given the type of contact you make with the sensing device! Try out different types of piercing (nose, ear, genital) and examine the different types of responses you get as electrical capacitance penetrates your body differently! (FYI we're co-workers not partners! Just demonstrating!)

Capacitive Touch Sensing

Capacitive Touch sensing is one of the simplest, quickest ways to make almost anything into a electronic controller. With the Mod dildo platform, turning things that are slightly conductive (like food, metallic clothing, or even your own body) into a fun new interface for your sex toy is only some wire and a resistor away!

This is the same technology used in the touch-sensitive screen of your smartphone or those lamps you can turn on and off by touching. A basic explanation for how it works is that many conductive objects (like the human body) can build an an electrical charge when near an electrical field (like a capacitor). This is harmless in capacitive sensing applications, but we can measure how much capacitance is being stored. Using this principle, we can tell when a big capacitive object (like your water-filled body) is touching or even near the electrical circuit. You can sometimes even use capacitive touch sensing for measuring pressure (e.g. how hard you are squeezing something). The best part about it, is that it is super easy and cheap to setup!

Exploring different materials is super fun, and also give different responses. Depending on the capactive material and the resistor you are using, you can even get a Theremin - like response by just moving near them. It's all the fun of a Makey-Makey, for sex!

The video below shows how capacitive touch sensing in its most basic form, by just connecting it to a plate of metal. Notice how human contact with the sensor activates the MOD's vibration!

Materials

• The Mod
• Breadboard
• USB Breakout Board
• 2 Double Sided Alligator Clips
• Resistor
• Metal Tray

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This project is brought to you by Comingle.io, the Open-Source Sex Toy

company. We are launching a brand new crowdfunding campaign at http://igg.me/at/mod to fund the mass production of a new fully hackable dildo. It lets you connect any kind of sensor or controller for fun new experiences. Check it out to learn all about this exciting new sex toy platform!

Setup Sensor

• Attach the MOD USB to Breakout Board
• Mount Breakout Board to Breadboard
• Insert Sensing Device to Breadboard
• Sensing Device Should Correspond to D+ Insert of Breakout Board
• Add Resistor to Breadboard
• Resistor Should be Placed in Both D+ and D- insert on Breadboard
• Use Alligator Clips to Extend Sensor Length
• Attach Other End of Alligator Clip to Metal Tray

Code

To experiment with capacitive sensing for fun with your Mod, send the code below from Codebender to your dildo by selecting "Run on Arduino"

Advanced Options (Getting fun, and getting weird)

Here's some more fun techniques for exploring capacitive sensing using various materials! Below you will find a compilation video of multiple experiments we performed to help inspire creative usage of capacitive sensing!

Optional Play Materials

• Glass of Wine
• Head Massager
• Guitar
• Banana
• Metal Flogging Device
• Stroke Sensor
• Conductive Tape
• Jewelery

Flogging, Stroke Sensor, Massager, and Banana!

Wine, Guitar, and Turtle!

Note: Don't actually use a turtle (or tortoise or any non-human animal) in any kind of invasive way for sex! This was just a demo of the amazing power of capacitive touch sensing (and a potentially interesting type of sensor for Andy's research in studying animal behavior). Be nice to animals and pets!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.