Hasta La Gadget!

A few years ago Ben Heck made a breath-operated controller to substitute for the kick drum pedal of the Guitar Hero drum set, allowing a wheelchair-bound player to rock out. This time, the master modder made his own USB-based pedals to give him added control options when playing video games on the PC.

Ben’s pedals are run by a Teensy board. His computer will recognize them as a keyboard, making it easy to map commands in games. Ben made it so he can map up to two commands per pedal: the first command is activated with a slight press and the second command is triggered by pressing harder on the pedal.

Watch Ben build them the video below. Skip to around 15:25 to see the finished pedals.

(Video courtesy of Element14 and Newark)

Don’t have Ben’s hands to help your feet? Don’t worry. There are commercially available PC foot pedals like the Stinkyboard, the Fragpedal and the Alto Edge Infinity.

[via The Ben Heck Show via Ubergizmo]

One thing everybody does is walk. You could drive a car or ride the bus to work or to school, but you’d still have to walk to do various stuff throughout your day. Now a group of students called the ‘Agitation Squad’ from Rice University are taking that very basic action and coming up with ways to use that kinetic energy, starting with the PediPower.

The PediPower is a prototype device that’s meant to be attached to the heel of your shoes. Energy is generated every time the heel hits the ground (or with every step that you take), and the PediPower harvests this as you go along. The device has an arm attached to the heel of the shoe which hits the ground first and moves up as the person puts his or her weight on the foot. The arm, in turn, is attached to a gearbox, where gears turn with every step to drive a motor that has been mounted on the side of the shoe.

This movement generates electricity, which is transported via a voltage regulator and through wires to a belt-mounted battery pack.

The initiative was a response to a challenge from Houston-based company Cameron International, which called for the creation of a device that could harvest energy from human activity.

The Agitation Squad gives an overview of the PediPower in the clip above. Check it out to see how putting your foot down will one day generate energy to maybe even power up your gadgets!

[via Gizmag]