Giant Keyboard Is Just Our Type

We like big keyboards and we cannot lie, and we’ve seen some pretty big keyboards over the years. But this one — this one is probably the biggest working board that anyone has ever seen. [RKade] and [Kristine] set out to make the world’s largest keyboard by Guinness standards – and at 16 feet long, you would think they would be a shoe-in for the world record. More on that later.

As you might have figured out, what’s happening here is that each giant key actuates what we hope is a Cherry-brand lever switch that is wired to the pads of a normal-sized keyboard PCB. Once they designed the layout, they determined that there were absolutely no existing commercial containers that, when inverted, would fit the desired dimensions, so they figured out that it would take 350 pieces of cardboard to make 70 5-sided keycaps and got to work.

Aside from the general awesomeness of this thing, we really like the custom buttons, which are mostly made of PVC components, 3D printed parts, and a bungee cord for the return spring.

[RKade] encountered a few problems with the frame build — mostly warped boards and shrunken holes where each of the 70 keys mount. After the thing was all wired up (cleverly, we might add, with Ethernet cable pairs), [RKade] rebuilt the entire frame out of three-layers of particle board.

By the way, Guinness rejected the application, citing that it must be an exact replica of an existing keyboard, and it must be built to commercial/professional standards. They also contradict themselves, returning no search results for biggest keyboard, but offer upon starting a world record application that there is a record-holding keyboard on file after all, and it is 8 ft (2.4 m) long. It’s not the concrete Russian keyboard, which is non-functional, but we wonder if it might be the Razer from CES 2018 that uses Kailh Big Switches.

Once the keyboard was up and running, [RKade] and [Kristine] duke it out over a game of Typing Attack, where the loser has to type all the lyrics to “Never Gonna Give You Up” on the giant keyboard. Check it out after the break.

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Rube Goldberg Machine Puts Engineering Students In The Record Books

rube_goldberg

Rube Goldberg machines are always a fan favorite around here. They truly embody the concept of over-engineering, and are an entertaining departure from what we normally cover on Hackaday.

Back in February, engineering students from two on-campus professional associations at Purdue University teamed up to construct a world record-setting Rube Goldberg machine. Their entry in the Purdue Regional Rube Goldberg Machine Contest not only won them the regional title, but also potentially put them in the books as creating the most complex device of its nature.

Their contraption was dubbed “The Time Machine” and acts out events in our planet’s history. It starts with the big bang, moving through various other time periods, including the stone age, ancient Egypt, and the medieval era. It also makes several stops in more recent times, including World War II and the Cold War, before self-destructing at the Apocalypse.

All told, the machine incorporates 244 steps to water a plant, which is 14 more than the previous record holder. Continue reading to see a video that highlights some of the machine’s more interesting features, and be sure to check out these Rube Goldberg machines we’ve covered in the past.

[via BoingBoing]

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Get Firefox 3 Early


It’s five hours till the official release of Firefox 3. We know your hands are sweating in anticipation, waiting to click that download link and contribute to the greatest World Record known to man… What? You don’t want your browser to have all the notoriety afforded to fat twins? Well then, let’s just go grab the file now since they’re already on the mirrors.

First, pick out a mirror from the official list. Navigate to the the directory of the Firefox 3.0 release: /pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/3.0/ You’ll be greeted by a message that says, “We’re not quite ready yet!” and that “Downloading them directly can harm our ability to distribute Firefox efficiently.” Also, you won’t be in the world record count. Think about that, jerk. All releases are named using a consistent pattern. Looking at an earlier release you can determine that the Mac version of 3.0 will be named: Firefox 3.0.dmg Add on the OS and language directories and it will look like this: /pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/3.0/mac/en-US/Firefox%203.0.dmg

You can find out more about the new release by reading Dria’s Field Guide to Firefox 3.