Peripherals Hacks

1560 Articles

Tablo, Fabric Gesture Controller

August 1, 2008 by 8 Comments


[Adrian Freed] posted this interesting fabric gesture controller called Tablo. It uses a stretchy conductive fabric, laid over a framework to create a curve known as the Witch of Agnesi. Holding the center of the fabric up is an inverted bowl covered with sections of conductive material. The whole thing is wired to a microcontroller that measures the resistance fluctuations when you press on the fabric. It is capable of measuring displacement and pressure as well as being multitouch.

They mention that the simple interface allows it to be used as a foot input as well as a hand input. We’d love to see a video of it in action.

UnMouse Cheap Multitouch Prototype

July 31, 2008 by 11 Comments


A Microsoft research team has delivered a prototype called the UnMouse that could really be a big hit. This unit is a mouse pad sized sensor that is multitouch and pressure sensitive. It is flexible and thin enough to roll up. The article mentions that the construction of the device is “dirt cheap”. This is very exciting; is this the next mouse?

The idea of having low cost multitouch input is very enticing. While there are many ways to do multitouch right now, most are limited by their large size due to projector/camera setups or high cost such as the iPhone. A portable (fits in your laptop bag) pressure sensitive multitouch input device is something that a lot of people have been craving for a while.

Just imagine the uses. Audio engineers could create new interfaces on the fly. You could draw a key map on piece of paper and just lay it on top. Graphic designers could use different sized and shaped brushes. Gamers could make their own ergonomically comfortable gaming layouts. How about covering one in Velcro and attaching buttons to it?

Shell Case Your Flash Drive

July 30, 2008 by 3 Comments


[Aki] sent in his collection of projects. We like his bullet shell cased USB flash drive and his take on our friend, the simple parallel port based logic analyzer. The flash drive uses a B style USB connector, mounted inside a big freakin’ bullet shell. The logic analyzer is the classic version, but uses a rather nice unix compatible piece of software that supports up to 1mhz sampling rates.

Digital Wall Harp

July 29, 2008 by 2 Comments


[Alison Lewis] has posted this fantastic digital wall harp project at My Home 2.0. They built an infrared MIDI instrument into a wall, using a MidiTron and some IR sensors. It all connects to a computer running a MIDI sequencer via a MIDI to USB converter. The project was built for a family home. They wanted something musical that they could play as easily as waiving their hand. They got it! Simply run your hand under the sensors and play some music!

[via Instructables]

The Liquid Display

July 29, 2008 by 3 Comments


[Nicolas] sent in his liquid display project.Think of it as the opposite of a fountain display. Instead of water, it releases bubbles into a flat panel filled with liquid. There aren’t many details on the site, but it’s a nice twist on an classic concept. He also created an odd sort of liquid interface. Touching the liquid in any of the three chambers in front causes changes in the reaction of the display.

Wiimoteless IR Whiteboard

July 28, 2008 by 9 Comments


[Eduard] sent in his IR webcam whiteboard project. He wanted something like the Wiimote version, but without the expense of a Wiimote. He added some film negative to the camera to reduce the amount of visible light picked up by the CCD. (He notes that you might need to pull the IR filter from your camera to get a decent signal.) The pen is the usual IR LED with a power supply. To do the actual work, he wrote a custom application in Java.

SONAR Controlled USB Missile Launcher

July 27, 2008 by 5 Comments


Check out this add on for that cheap USB missile launcher we know you bought last year. It uses ultrasonic sensors to provide sonar feedback for the aiming system. A PIC 18F455 drives a servo to aim the sensor and massage the signal from the sensor. It still depends on a PC application to put everything together. If you’d rather play with faster hardware, keep your eyes open for this years defcon bots contest.