What Input Device? Just Use Your Arm

March 31, 2010 by Mike Szczys 24 Comments

This one could be a game changer. [Chris Harrison] and a team of researchers are showing off a method of using your arm as an input device. An arm band worn by the user picks up acoustic signatures created by tapping on your arm with the other hand, or taping your fingers and thumb together on the same hand. They’re achieving accuracies in the 82-97% range but it gets even better. Take a look at the video after the break and see what they’ve done by adding a pico-projector to the arm band in order to use your arm or hand as a touch display.

We liked seeing the concept mice from October, but the future of input devices might already be attached at the elbow.

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PIC Based USB Input Devices

March 21, 2010 by Mike Szczys 39 Comments

USB is convenient and that makes it desirable in many many projects. [Simon Inns] has the process down and is sharing it with his recent PIC based USB tutorial. Prompted by requests for help on the matter after having published a post about his Commodore 64 interface, he set out to detail the particulars when it comes to using the PIC 18F family as USB input devices. This example uses a PIC 18F4550 with the circuit built on a breadboard. There’s not much required here, an oscillator, a few passives, and a USB B connector. The magic really happens in the code. Take a look at this well-written guide and give it a try with your next project.

Don’t need USB? [Simon’s] game hack, the Ultimate Simon is always worth another look too.

Pranav Mistry’s Cool Input Devices

December 7, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 28 Comments

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This new video about [Pranav Mistry’s] SixthSense project doesn’t bring us much that we haven’t seen before. At least, not on that project. What really caught our eye was the device he shows off at the beginning of the video. Using two old ball mice, he constructed a grip style input device. It is simple and elegant and we can definitely see using this in future hacks. Not only is it cheap and apparently effective, it seems as though it could be constructed in a very short amount of time. all you need are the wheels that spin when the ball moves, 4 springs and some string. Why didn’t we think of that?

[thanks Sean]

Saturday Afternoon Robot Cooking

December 5, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 13 Comments

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3VstJSxZlc&feature=player_embedded%5D

What happens when you combine an IR tracking PS3 Eyetoy, and a high-resolution projector? If you answered multi-touch display, you’re on the right track. Add a Wii Nunchuck controlled robot, a pinch of Community Core Vision tracking software combined with Processing, and the piece de resistance, a modified Memo TUIO particle system and you get the mesmerizing video above.

Check out this combination of crazy robotics and more with SparkFun’s free robot hobby builders meet-up on Saturday.

[Thanks Anon]

Extended IR Input

October 25, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 18 Comments

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We’re not sure why [Roteno] prefers to have his TV and cable boxes not face him when he’s sitting on the couch, but to each their own. You may already see many problems with this setup: discoloration from LCD viewing angle, difficulty playing Wii, oh and most importantly – not being able to change the channel with his IR remote. [Roteno] was lucky enough, however, to have an IR remote input on the back of his cable box. All it took was a 3.5mm jack and a spare IR receiver and he was back in business. Sure it’s not as technical as some of our cable or IR hacks and we would like to see someone try this who doesn’t have as easily accessible IR input on the back of their cable box. But either way, here’s one more step to never having to leave that couch.

Home Made Rollerbar Mouse

October 12, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 20 Comments

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[Judyofthewoods] has hacked together this rollerbar mouse. We’ve heard people talk about these in a positive way, going on about how comfortable they are. We haven’t really experimented with one much to verify. This one looks surprisingly nice considering it is made from scrap. The image above is showing it without the cover that hides the hot glue and optical sensor. There isn’t much of a writeup, but as you can see from the picture, there isn’t much necessity for one either. She seems to have done a great job stating that it is fairly smooth with only minor jittering.

Impress: Tactile Interface

February 12, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 13 Comments

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Touch screen interfaces are generally hard and flat. Impress tries to break from that tradition by making the display flexible. Allowing you to feel more like you are interacting with the display. In the image above, the circles seem to physically fall into the dent made by your fingers. Another application shows some rudimentary 3d modeling being done by physically pushing on the vertexes. This prototype is very interesting, we’d love to see much higher resolution on the input side of things. It states that it does pressure sensitivity, but we weren’t able to distinguish it in the video. Maybe you can, catch the video after the break. Maybe laying one of these on some foam would be another alternative.

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