Comments on: Life-Size Katamari Lives

By: Kellbot

Kellbot — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 02:17:33 +0000

Unfortunately I think I managed to lose it. But if I come across it, or end up rewriting it, I will definitely post it.

By: Brandon

Brandon — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 03:06:58 +0000

Do you think you could post somewhere the programming that went into the arduino?

By: Charlie

Charlie — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 23:45:16 +0000

Steve,

Thanks for the details–I’m interested in trying something similar. Any updates on how the expensive bearings worked?

That’s great that all you could do it without building a circuit–I wasn’t clear on why the original needed one.

By: Kellbot

Kellbot — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:04:37 +0000

Hi Tim,
I’d love for this work to help people who otherwise have trouble with traditional interface devices. Unfortunately at this time I don’t have many hours to put into the project, but would love to see what other people come up with.

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 23:12:40 +0000

Kelly would you be interested in helping to develop your gadget for people with disabilities that lacked fine motor skills. It would help them use a computer more easily.
Maybe a university would be interested in helping transition that. The Eva who commented on your device Is From Yale University. Could get you in contact with her also.

Timothy Carey

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 15:40:35 +0000

Just got my arduino in the mail and completed the blink an led project! Excited to start learning about this stuff…but I thought I’d jump right in like you and want to create something similar to your project.

Did you use a PS/2 mouse or was it an optical mouse? I looked at the PS/2 lib and it appears all I’d really need to do is use the sketch that comes with it (http://www.arduino.cc/playground/uploads/ComponentLib/mouse.txt) and then use your your diagram to wire it up, does that sound about right?

Did you have to create or customize a sketch in any way to work with the pot?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

P.S. – You were my “inspiration” to dive into the world of arduino, saw this post and said what the heck is arduino??? A few days of research and reading…ordered one online! Next stop….radio shack….and then….countless sleepless nights….

By: Ball Transfers

Ball Transfers — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:14:19 +0000

This is extremely well engineered. I wish you the best of luck with your project and hope you push it further!

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:10:36 +0000

I am very interested in Tim and Eves comments. Before I even saw this video, I was building a giant trackball for my daughter who has Cerebral Palsy and none of the ‘adaptive’ equipment out there seemed to work, because they all call for some type of fine motor control. So I decided to build one. Prototype #4 just became operational yesterday. I am using a 6 lb. bowling ball as the ball (sanded with 400 grit sandpaper to give it a matte finish and read better with the laser), a standard laser USB mouse mounted underneath the ball, and a software package (demo) called PointSmart to reverse the vertical movement and slow down the tracking speed. The real problem that I am having is the mounting mechanism for the bowling ball. My first prototype was using a bearing tripod similar to what is shown on the video, but with a nylon roller ball and a nylon cup thinking that (similar to a comment above) that nylon should contain the noise and provide nice smooth movement. Turns out that there wasn’t enough friction between the ball and the nylon to actually turn the bearings so the ball just slid, but not very smoothly. Prototype #2 used three stainless steel roller rods (similar to an actual arcade trackball) but I ended up with the same problem in reverse, there was too much friction between the bowling ball and the stainless rods. Prototype #3 used nylon slides, no bearings at all-utter failure. Prototype #4 is using almost exactly what is shown on the video, a 1″ spherical stainless steel bearing tripod (these units are actually called ‘Ball Transfers’ if you try to look them up on the internet). They do provide the ease of movement that I am looking for, but are very noisy. The noise actually doesn’t come from the contact of the trackball and the bearing, but from the internal mechanics of the bearings themselves. Each of those 1″ stainless spheres that the bowling ball sits on in turn sits on a dozens of smaller bearings, allowing the 1″ ball to turn freely. It is the 1″ bearing turning against all of these little bearings that provides all the unwanted noise. They also do run a bit rough, since they are quite cheap.
The other thing that I did was wire in 1/8″ stereo jack into the left mouse click button and built a giant pushbutton as the mouse click. So instead of trying to fiddle with a small mouse button, my daughter can just mash the big button when she needs to click.

Next steps: I am finally going to shell out the cash for a set of precision ‘clean room’ type bearings used in precision medical equipment or similar. They tend to run about $30 each, so you can see why I have tried everything else first, but that should finally provide the smoothest movement, and cut down the noise.

Sorry for the long post, just interested, thanks.

By: Techni

Techni — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 08:10:45 +0000

Could you provide the wiring/coding needed to make a PS3 version?

I ask this because you would be able to eliminate the PS2 controller altogether and just have the microcontroller report itself as an HID compliant controller to the PS3.

By: Kellbot

Kellbot — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:32:47 +0000

@cristi Yes, you can power it from any +5V power source.