These Bubbles Releases Scents When Popped

What's This?

SensaBubble is a multimodal alert system that generates scented bubbles. and can project images onto them.

Glenn McDonald for Discovery News 2014-04-28 16:15:23 UTC

If my kindergartner is any authority — and she’ll be the first to tell you that she is — bubble machines represent the coolest technology on the planet.

A new project out of the University of Bristol is promising to take bubble technology to the next level. The SensaBubble initiative is designed to provide a “chrono-sensory mid-air display system” that delivers information and feedback through multiple senses.

The bubbles generated by the machine are delivered at specified sizes and speeds, each filled with an opaque fog that can be custom scented. Pop the bubbles, and you get cinnamon, or pine trees or what-have-you.

What’s more, images and colors can be projected onto the bubbles in mid-air, to deliver a unique kind of alert or display system.

On the SensaBubble project page, lead researcher Sriram Subramanian says SensaBubble could have potential applications in gaming, advertising, education or museum exhibits.

“There are many areas in which bubble-based technology like SensaBubble could be applied, such as a SensaBubble clock that releases the number of scented bubbles corresponding to the hour, or SensaBubble Maths, an educational game for children, which incorporates smell as feedback on their success.”

Well, it would certainly make math more festive. I think we can all get behind that. Check out the demo video below.