And GET THIS idea: I'm a musician, too, familiar with MIDI and automation; suppose you had someone work you over with the tickle device via remote control; it's no big deal for a computer to record and "replay" the session again later, like the way a MIDI sequencer stores your every note and even controller moves (like joysticks, knobs, mod wheels, aftertouch or ribbon control) So expert ticklers could upload samples of what their sessions on the machine are like!
I swear I was going to suggest this but have no idea how to program MIDI. Actually I had this idea a while ago where you'd plug a keyboard into a tickling machine and areas on the keyboard would control certain tickling devices and velocity would determine intensity etc. I think I might have gotten the idea from Barbarella.
But yes we are getting well ahead of ourselves and the first order of business is a simple tool that can create a genuine tickling sensation. I've been focusing on the mechanics of the arms since I think basic functionality of that aspect is likely to be the first most crucial step. I've looked around for robotic hands but damn those things are expensive. The best I could find would be a model of a robot hand that can change poses and the basic assembly line type. I think going down that road would be more trouble than it's worth. Working out how to get a full-blown robotic hand to act in the way we want it would be far too complex and an assembly line hand would only be able to hold another instrument to use, making it only slightly more affective than a do-it-yourself arm rig.
One thing I did come across when checking out some robotic sites is a microcontroller. It's something that receives programming data from a computer via USB and uses that to command the robot. Since RC requires manual control, this might be closer to what we'd be looking at. It should be simpler than building the simplest kit robot too since we're not programming it with a true artificial intelligence, just a random event generator.
I wouldn't look at massagers as tickle machines at all personally. I remember sitting in one of those ones you can stick on a chair and it HURT. It had those circular moving things that dug into my spine and kidneys. Maybe I'm just too skinny for that stuff. I do remember seeing images of women with what appeared to be some kind of massaging device strapped to the soles of their feet which was supposedly tickling them, but I doubt that would work.
I just remembered, we have one of those gyms at home that my mum's been wanting to get rid of for months! Guess I'll have to tell her I'll be wanting it for uh... exercise.
Safety precautions... Hadn't thought of fire. We could talk about mechanical releases but I don't know if I'd trust my life to one. I'd rather use the key with the frozen string technique and put my money on the laws of physics. But let's assume we come up with a release system that's connected to the computer, it should activate in the event of any failure in the system. For that to work the failsafe would have to be free from any chance of failure. This would all be a lot easier if you weren't tied up :lol
Definitely have to go with the exercise bench idea, but let's try not to make it impossible to use if you don't have one. I'm going to go work on a diagram for some simpler modules that you can actually strap to your body now. Oh and we're going to need to work out how the tickling implement at the end of an arm can rotate independently.