Although beer is generally a good way to get people to come to your trade show booth, [Robofun.ru] decided to put a new spin on things. Instead of (or possibly in addition to) giving out beer, they decided to turn 40 Staropramen beer cans into a keyboard.
This was done using an Arduino hooked up to four Sparkfun MPR121 Capacitive Touch Sensor Breakout Boards, allowing them to act as keys. These inputs are translated via the Arduino into a standard output (we assume USB) that can be plugged into any computer. Additionally, a Sparkfun MP3 trigger board was used to control the sound effects. Rounding out the build, a Raspberry Pi computer was used to run the human machine interface, a large plasma display.
Be sure to check out this keyboard in action after the break. If this isn’t enough alternative input fun, why not check our post about how to make a banana piano and giant NES controller.
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/51526148 w=470&h=300]
*Robofun.RO
:D
Emoticons for sticking my tongue out and making raspberry noise. One could never guess the layout of the notes. No proper speaker(s) seen. Proper doesn’t include thin tweeters in TV screen! There are alternative keyboard layouts, this is not one of them.
40 alphabetical beer cans on the wall! 40 alphabetical beer cans! You tap one now to paste letters around. 39 alphabetical beer cans on the wall! 39 alphabetical beer cans! …