January 06, 2024 by Serge Sokolov
After my project reached the top for the Google query “Mouse design develop”, the link was killed, and the project material was moved to another address, where it seems there is no Google indexing. Well then, I’m publishing here now. This is a mouse with full keyboard-like typing capabilities.
Instead of pressing keys, as on a regular keyboard, I tilt the tip of the pyramid. The tip moves with a finger towards the symbol that is depicted on one of the four sides of the pyramid. This saves a lot of space. I perfectly placed 60 symbols on 15 pyramids, each with an area of one square centimeter.
This mouse is only slightly larger than a regular computer mouse. The space that can now be easily freed up on the desk by removing the usual keyboard fully justifies this.
The bottom joysticks with one rod carry out all the functionality of the control keys. I wrote the Back. I did not specify a spacebar, probably everyone will guess that the right joystick should be pushed to the right. Of course, everyone can program this functionality as they want using a CC BY license, but it seems to me that my solution is not so bad either. For example, the combination Ctrl + Alt + Del is obtained if we move the right joystick to the dial 21:00 Alt, and the left joystick to 16:30, that is, the position between Ctrl and Del. That is, my keyboard is also good because instead of pressing two control keys, you can simply tilt the joystick between them.
I also decided that I would take the Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller. The microcontroller is placed in the back, where there is still enough space for additional modules. The length of the mouse-keyboard turned out to be 140 mm, which is comparable to the usual dimensions. In width, my device looks larger due to the tubular battery slots on the side.
Power is supplied from four batteries, which can be replaced with anything as it is AA type.
I use a bunch of Freecad and KiCad, these are open development environments that anyone can install for themselves. Commercial environments are more powerful, and here I see mainly this toolkit presented, but for now I'm using what I have. Perhaps in the future it makes sense to switch to commercial CAD. I also use GitHub for version control, as this is probably the most familiar not only to me. Other commercial development environments, of course, have their own version control system, but here at this stage it seems to me that there is enough. https://github.com/serge-scl/mini-keyboard
