Check out this keyboard mod that Charlie Webb from NortHACKton came up with. You can never have too much automation, I love the big red button which allows a predetermined string of text to be sent to the computer when pressed. There are some additional pictures and schematics here.

“NortHACKton member, Charlie Webb, recently completed this project based around an arduino and a keyboard. Fed up with the way Windows forced him to switch between his different keyboard layouts (qwerty to Dvorak) he decided to take the process entirely out of windows hands.”

Kevin Pineda, Theo Jeneotopulos, Victor Cabrera, Michel Sanchez and Sergio Martinez from the Florida International University developed this IR Mouse Pen Idea they call KeyMoTe. It uses a camera which is looking at the user who holds an IR pen. The camera is connected to an arduino which sends mouse information to the computer. An off the shelf blue tooth keyboards allows the user to also type from a distance. This project reminds me of the project that Johnny Lee did a few years ago.

“Our design includes 3 major components: The keyboard will be a miniature version of a standard QWERTY style keyboard, the infrared LED will act as the mouse when using the computer, and the infrared (IR) camera that will constantly keep track of the IR LED movement and convert that data into a coordinate system which will then move the mouse in real time. In this project we will use an Arduino microcontroller to communicate the data from the IR camera to the computer via Universal Serial Bus (USB).”

Our friend Bob Davis has been working on a new version of his DIY Earthquake Detection which monitors magnetic fields to attempt to predict earthquakes. This new design is using UGN3503 hall effect devices and an Arduino.

“I came up with this idea over 10 years ago because animals behave strangely before earthquakes.  They know something is about to happen.  I also know animals can navigate magnetically.  If you put baby sea turtles in a pool they will swim east to west.  If you add a magnet the will arc around it. “