Dial Keyboard
As an exercise in serial communication and interaction design, I created a keyboard that outputs spaces and 26 lower case letters through the Arduino serial terminal. The device was made in 2 days for a course in interactive device design.
All non-electrical components were laser-cut from wood. The keyboard plugs in through USB.
The raised wooden dial and keys follow the natural position of the hands and fingers.
The dial sets the group of letters assigned to the 5 keys. Pressing the space key and thumb key outputs 'z', the 26th letter.
The 5 copper pads map to 5 different letter groups. Each group then maps to 5 keys depending on which group the dial is set to.
Under the dial are two leaf springs that connect one copper pad at a time to GND. This allows for full-rotation in both directions when selecting letter groups.
Top cover, keys, dial, switches, wipers, and mid-plate assembled.
Diagram of above assembly.
Tact switches and copper pads are wired to the microcontroller on the breadboard.
Fritzing diagrams of 6 tact switches and 5 dial states wired to the microcontroller.
If you look carefully, you can see me type out the phrase 'hello world'.
Thanks for your time.
