Giant fabric keyboard
posted May 28th 2008 7:30pm by Juan Aguilarfiled under: arduino hacks, misc hacks
[ladyada] pointed us in the direction of this giant fabric keyboard built by [Maurin Donneaud]. The construction of it looks fairly simple, like the buttons used in [fbz]‘s WiFi detecting backpack strap, but on a larger scale. We’ll take you through its construction, pictures and all, after the break.
[Maurin] used several lengths of conductive fabric, a perforated foam core, and an Arduino.
Pictured above is the foam core being punched. The holes will create contact points between the conductive layers. The grid shows where the keys of the keyboard will be in the finished version.
After that, the conductive layers, and inner foam layer are sewn together. The conductive layers are placed in opposing directions, creating a switch matrix.
An Arduino is used to translate each step into a button press. While full design specs are nowhere to be found, the higher resolution photos on [Maurin]‘s Flickr stream should give you enough of an idea to build your own.
[via ladyada]
Could the same design/idea be used to build one of those giant floor piano/keyboards like they have at FAO Schwartz?
Posted at 8:00 pm on May 28th, 2008 by zinge