LaserBoard

Inspiration

A lot of people around me and I as well have always dealt with physical keyboards/mouses being mediocre for instance: getting dirty, malfunctioning, straining on the hands, prone to mistakes, time-consuming, and easily damaged so I always wondered why there was never a solution to this and I also questioned if it was damaging to the world because of the wires and materials used. Then I researched and found that there was a solution which is laser keyboards and physical keyboards/mouses are e-waste that contains toxic chemicals. Most people do not know that keyboards and mouses can be recycled so they get to the landfills and leach. The toxic chemicals harm humans, the air, water, the soil, and animals. So basically the world. I think even though keyboards and mouses are not all of the e-waste in landfills it is still a large part considering the statistics. So switching to laser keyboards would save the world. Laser keyboards have so many advantages in terms of portability, flexibility, and maintenance. So I didn't understand why they are not as known and used. Then I saw and there are disadvantages to the existing ones, for instance, it's very expensive ($50-70) so it's not accessible.

What it does

So that's why I came up with the idea to create a laser keyboard that is more appealing and cheap, which has the features like a mouse, to change brightness & color through an app when connected through Bluetooth with the LaserBoard. As well as promoting recycling electronic products and offering a feature on the site of my business to find local tech centers to do so.

How we built it

I used MIT App Inventor to demo my app. I did not get the chance to begin coding for the laser keyboard. But when I start I will use C++ or Java as the language and OpenCV or GitHub as a library to reference. The concrete specifications for sure needed will be a pattern projector, IR light source, and sensor modules.

Challenges we ran into

The challenge I ran through for figuring out how I would make the brightness or color feature possible. I'm proud of coming up with an idea that seems so simple but is so powerful. It will make the user experience.

What we learned

I learned a lot about e-waste and its negative effects. It's not spoken of enough and it's a major problem because our world really revolves around technology. So I think it's important to ensure people are aware that electronic products can be recycled as well as how digital products are better not only for them but the world.

What's next for LaserBoard

What's next for LaserBoard is bringing it to life by incorporating all of the concrete specifications and coding to ensure it works correctly.

Built With

• google-slides
• mit-app-inventor