Despite the gloomy nickname - killerdark - this author of Instructables came up with an interesting thing. As you know, fine motor skills in children does not develop immediately. It is no coincidence that at first they are given Lego Duplo designers and similar ones with large parts, and only then ordinary ones. But what if the child, still not really learning to talk, is outraged that the parents control the playing of the cartoons? After all, he wants himself!
As a video player, the master takes an old laptop with broken hinges of the hinged cover with a display. It will output video to an external monitor with built-in speakers. Thanks to the use of an external laptop digital keyboard, we managed to do without Arduinoby connecting the buttons to the board of this keyboard instead of the keys. The master is going to place buttons and a board in the case from MDF.
Before manufacturing homemade the wizard compiles a playlist and configures the VLC Player so that it can be controlled from the keys on the mini-keyboard. Even before making the console, he makes sure that the configuration works.
After configuring the software, the wizard takes on the hardware. He begins with the manufacture of MDF case dimensions of 150x150x100 mm and drilling holes for buttons in it. He rounds off sharp corners with sandpaper. Then prepares a stencil with the notation for the keys:
Prints:
Cuts out:
And transfers the drawing with paint to the case:
After that, it covers the case with transparent varnish so that the picture does not erase, and takes on the numeric keypad. Parses it, removing electronics:
Shows which intersections on the matrix correspond to which digits:
Disconnects the matrix from the board and solders the wires instead:
By opening Notepad (or Geany, or any text editor in general) and connecting the conductors with each other, simulating closures at the intersection points of the matrix lines, the wizard makes sure that the keyboard board perceives them as pressing the corresponding keys. Then he takes the buttons (one of them was behind the scenes):
Installs them and the board in the case, connects everything, and the console is ready:
It remains to prepare the child a workplace of film critic:
You can come up with other applications for the design. Everyone who tried to introduce representatives of the older generation to information technology knows that some of them learn very easily, while others try to treat computer technology like household appliances using linear algorithms, which is not always the case. In addition, presbyopia can interfere with learning. And then a similar remote control will help out, the large buttons of which with well-readable explanatory inscriptions trigger macro commands, for example, for video calls to children and grandchildren.