I devised, designed and built a gadget that you can clip to your pocket, a bag, or a jacket that lets you push a few buttons to control your mobile phone, as well as the mobile software/app to configure and communicate with it.
This skill-set required to complete this project included:
- Understanding of digital and analogue electronics design
- PCB design (Eagle CAD)
- Surface mount soldering
- Physical design and 3D CAD (Blender and OpenJSCAD)
- Toolset extension to streamline workflow (Blender plugin that enables dynamic OpenJSCAD object import)
- Firmware development (Arduino)
- Mobile development (Android/Phonegap)
My first design wrapped around your hand so that the buttons were constantly in your palm. While this made them extremely accessible, it was prohibitively in the way for other tasks. Finally, a simple clothes-pin like design was a great compromise. The buttons were still easily accessible while keeping your hands entirely free.
The software connected to Tasker, a popular automation app for Android. This allowed me to focus on the functionality of the interface, while still accomplishing powerful results with what was possible to activate with button pushes.
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- Purple PCB’s from Ian, the first revision of my hand control boards
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- First hand control boards successfully completed!
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- These ‘keys’ are placed over buttons that are inside the palm of your hand.
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- A physical ‘chart’ of the iterations I went through while designing the first hand control board.
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- This pogo pin case was unsuccesful because the case did not support the pins properly.
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- unsuccessful test of a pogo pin configuration for firmware upload
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- third revision bread-board test
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- Complete test of 2nd revision clip control
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