ARIVE Brings Haptics Expertise to the 2026 IVE Winter School

The 2026 IVE Winter School brought together 30 students for an intensive week exploring Haptics for Extended Reality (XR), with ARIVE researchers playing a leading role in shaping and delivering the program. Hosted over five days, the Winter School provided students with an opportunity to learn from leading researchers and practitioners in haptics and XR, develop practical skills, and work collaboratively on projects exploring how touch and physical interaction can transform immersive experiences.

For ARIVE, the Winter School was an opportunity to share expertise in haptics with a new generation of researchers and demonstrate the breadth of research being undertaken in this rapidly developing field.

ARIVE's Professor Mark Billinghurst and Dr Rob Teather were central to the Winter School program, bringing extensive expertise in augmented and virtual reality, human-computer interaction and haptics. The program was designed to move beyond lectures and provide students with hands-on experience of haptic technologies and interaction techniques. Students worked in seven multidisciplinary teams throughout the week, developing their own projects and exploring practical applications of haptics for XR.

The combination of expert-led sessions, practical activities and project-based learning gave participants an opportunity to engage directly with the challenges involved in designing effective haptic interactions, from understanding the technologies themselves through to considering how haptics can improve the way people interact with virtual environments.

For ARIVE, this knowledge-sharing component was an important part of their involvement. By bringing together researchers with complementary expertise and giving students access to haptic hardware and practical project experience, the Winter School helped build capability across the broader XR research community.

The Winter School featured an outstanding group of international and Australian speakers from Adelaide University, Princeton University, the University of Auckland, the University of Sydney, Saarland University and Google.

The diversity of expertise was a key strength of the program. Students were able to engage with researchers working across different aspects of haptics, XR, interaction design and technology development, gaining exposure to both fundamental research and emerging real-world applications.

The event also provided an opportunity for students from different institutions to connect. Participants came from Adelaide University, the Australian National University, the University of Auckland, Swinburne University of Technology, Monash University and the University of Canterbury, as well as industry.

This cross-institutional environment encouraged collaboration and gave participants the opportunity to develop connections that extend beyond the Winter School itself.

A major focus of the program was putting knowledge into practice. Students formed seven project teams and spent the week developing their ideas, culminating in posters, oral presentations and live demonstrations on the final day. Access to specialist equipment was an important part of this practical experience. Equipment generously provided through researchers at the University of Sydney, including Anusha Withana and colleagues, enabled students to experiment with haptic technologies as they developed their projects.

The final demonstrations showcased the range of ideas developed during the week and highlighted the value of combining theoretical knowledge with hands-on experimentation.

The Winter School reflects an important part of ARIVE's broader role: connecting expertise, building research capability and helping advance Australia's XR community. Haptics is an increasingly important area of XR research. While visual and audio technologies have long been central to immersive experiences, the ability to incorporate touch and physical interaction has the potential to fundamentally change how people experience and interact with virtual environments.

Providing students with the opportunity to learn directly from researchers working at the forefront of haptics helps ensure that emerging researchers are equipped to explore these challenges themselves.

ARIVE looks forward to continuing to support opportunities that build expertise, encourage collaboration and advance research in haptics, extended reality and human-computer interaction.