Technology

How-To: Keyboard Breakout Board

How-To: Keyboard Breakout Board

If you’re building a standalone project with an embedded PC (say, a CNC rig or a MAME cabinet) one of the easiest ways to get instructions to the software is using the PC’s baked-in keyboard interface. But if you don’t want to actually use a keyboard to control the thing, you need some way to convert button presses and/or joystick movements from your custom control panel into signals that look like keyboard input.

Sub-0 Cardboard Hexapod Robot

Sub-$100 Cardboard Hexapod Robot

Mike Estee has been laser-cutting hexapod limbs from cardboard and is making great progress on his hexapod project. As he explains:

As I’ve written about in the past, cost can be measured in many ways. For this exercise I’m primarily interested in cost of materials, cost of manufacturing, and assembly time. Design time isn’t particularly optimized here, but as we build on previous iterations, hopefully we can stay ahead of complexity. On the cold hard cash front, I think I’m doing pretty well. This little fellow consists of: $1.00 in cardboard, $54.60 in servos, and $29.95 in servo controllers.

Quick and Dirty Lav Mic from iPhone Headset

Quick and Dirty Lav Mic from iPhone Headset

In a pinch, you can clip the earbuds off an iPhone headset to get a quick and dirty lav mic. Add a safety pin with a little hot glue and camouflage it with a smattering of sharpie and you’re good to go. If you’re curious about the quality of the audio produced with such a setup, check out the above video from maker Levi Allen, where he runs through a build while capturing the audio with his iPhone. It won’t win any awards, however it’ll get the job done.