Working Lego Computer Keyboard

http://jkbrickworks.com/lego-computer-keyboard/

by an_error • 12 years ago

68 16 12 years ago

jkbrickworks.com

sean-duffy• 12 years ago

I liked that in the video he went to type "LEGOS" and then changed it to "LEGO bricks".

kirkus• 12 years ago

Excellent video and creation

userbinator• 12 years ago

I thoroughly enjoyed his creative symbolism for Caps Lock.

scholia• 12 years ago

and home...

masklinn3• 12 years ago

That's a pretty fun project, but it's a bit sad that the electronics were lifted form an existing keyboard.

Are mindstorms flexible enough to emulate USB HID?

edit: it looks like mindstorm EV3 is bluetooth-enabled. I don't know the details, but it might be possible to get it bound as a bluetooth keyboard, and thus to have a fully functional "pure-lego"[0] bluetooth keyboard.

[0] the mindstorm EV3 brick runs a Linux distro on a 300MHz ARM9 core with 64MB RAM and 16MB flash (plus a SDHC slot). Whether this remains "pure lego" may be up to debate.

ssdfsdf• 12 years ago

Yeah, I lost all interest in the story after seeing this.

vanderZwan2• 12 years ago

You could always go the Arduino route

http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/MouseKeyboard

lennel• 12 years ago

easy to flash and run own distro on the ev3 as well for example https://github.com/mindboards/ev3dev or lejos if you want the jvm. the ev3 is a fair bit of fun, not as flexible as arduino (obviously) but it ain't too bad.

masklinn3• 12 years ago

The distro is less of an issue than the IO, more specifically the ability to have the ev3 be seen as a HID (USB or bluetooth)

dsr_• 12 years ago

LEGO purists generally admit anything produced by the LEGO company, plus generic consumables like batteries as specified.

So a sticker from an original set is allowed, but printing your own sticker isn't; any 9V battery will do in a 9V battery box, and any SD card in an SDHC slot, but not a newly made extra-long wire to carry power out to a motor.

There are companies that make LEGO-compatible bricks, which range from execrable quality to slightly better than LEGO's own, but none of that would qualify.

All that being said, I don't know of anyone who maintains LEGO purity except in competitions and exhibitions with specific rules. LEGO themselves often produce large sculptures with an interior support armature which is not made of LEGO products.

masklinn3• 12 years ago

Sure, but in this case the lego part is kinda minor, it's a basic sculpture but the logic is lifted from and the layout imposed by the original keyboard's contacts.

You can't create a better, more flexible or completely different keyboard (e.g. recreate a symbolics keyboard, or a typematrix layout)

asgard1024• 12 years ago

What I would like to see would be a keyboard where the full keys were like LEGOs, and you could arrange them on the board in any layout you wished. But this is a good start.

orng• 12 years ago

And you could keep "spares" to add and remove keys that are/aren't in your chosen language. Really cool idea.

jpetersonmn• 12 years ago

So basically they took the keys off of a keyboard and glued some legos on the keys instead? Not really impressed.....

TomC7• 12 years ago

I was disappointed when I saw the base was taken from a keyboard (I was expecting that to be mindstorm based as it was posted on HN). But the mechanism for the keys is very cool and well designed, it's a massive understatement to say it's just Lego pieces glued on the keys

vanderZwan2• 12 years ago

The way you can easily slide them to perfectly arrange them is pretty neat too. I can see this work well in prototyping settings with DIY contact switches (two layers of aluminium with a piece of foam and a hole, basically).

Working Lego Computer Keyboard

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