Designer Joong Han Lee wants to humanize the way we deal with virtual objects in design and prototyping. His answer is Haptic Intelligentsia, a human / robot hybrid that allows users to build physical items around a virtual model using only their sense of touch.  Created as Lee’s master’s thesis at the Design Academy Eindhoven, the project consists of a closed box, which users access through a pair of gloves, and a glue gun attached to a computer-controlled robotic arm. Lee programs a virtual object into the workspace — in this case, a simple cylinder — and the robotic arm provides haptic feedback whenever the gun comes into contact with the object’s “surface.” Using the quick-drying glue, users can then build real objects while sculpting around the model’s virtual contours