"But what's a footmouse?" you might think. Well... let's take a look!
It lets you control the cursor and execute common mouse actions with your feet. Spacy, huh?
"But where can I get one?"
You can build one yourself. DIY, fork yeah!!!
Just follow the instructions and you can buy shoes online or do your taxes or skype with your cousin while you're hands are free to clap or wave or whatever is the most appropriate reaction at the time.
So let's get cracking!
- 1 Balanceboard
- 1 Arduino Leonardo
- 1 MPU6050 Breakout Board
- 2 TCRT5000 IR Sensors
- 2 LEDs
- 2 small proto boards
- 6 resistors (2x 220Ω, 2x 100Ω, 2x 47Ω)
- 14 jumper wires
- Breadboard or additional proto board for power distribution
- Pin Strip (8 Pins needed)
- Soldering Iron
- Glue gun
The ones you can buy don't really work well for this and building it yourself is way more fun anyway. You're going to need 2 of these.
The grey lines are solder connections below the proto board. The blue, red and black lines are cables. Place the header pins at the blue, red, black and yellow circles. You need to bend the pins of the TCRT5000 a bit so it'll sit on the board 90 degrees rotated.
Place the Leonardo and sensors on the balance board like this (replace BH1750 with TCRT5000 and check the connections listed below):
MPU6050 - Arduino
VCC - 5V
GND - GND
SDA - 2
SCL - 3
TCRT5000 #1 - Arduino
5V - 5V
GND - GND
Sensor Pin - 7
LED Pin - 4
TCRT5000 #2 - Arduino
5V - 5V
GND - GND
Sensor Pin - 8
LED Pin -12
This was developed and testet for Ubuntu 16.04.
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Extract the .zip to your sketchbook folder (usually named "Arduino")
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Create a libraries folder in the Sketchbook folder and extract the 2 external libraries MPU6050 and I2Cdev to that folder
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Upload Balanceboard.ino to your Leonardo
Tilt the board to move the cursor
Lift your left toes and set them right back down to click
Lift your left toes, wait half a second before setting them down to double click
Lift your right toes and set them right back down to open context menu
Lift your right toes, wait half a second before setting them down to activate/deactivate select and drag'n'drop mode