Make A Wooden Computer Keyboard #ArtTuesday

NewImage

Steve M Potter made this beautiful wooden keyboard and tutorial to follow via instructables

I decided that I deserve a keyboard that I really adore, since I spend most of my workday at the computer. You can buy gorgeous office desks, chairs, wooden pens and beautiful stationery. Why is it that keyboards are all plastic and ugly? I always liked the feel and sound of the old IBM-AT clicky keyboards. These have the “buckling spring” mechanism that is very strong and never wears out. But aesthetically, beige plastic – Yuck! So I decided to take the mechanical and electronic guts of a clicky keyboard and install them into a home-made wood version. This turned out to be a long and tedious art+engineering project, and I will spare you some of the missteps I made, describing here what worked. In the end, I have a very solid, completely functional beautiful wood keyboard that I use every day at work. The keyboard even survived dozens of kids pounding on it at the Atlanta Maker Faire, where I had it hooked up to my laptop for people to try it out.

NewImage

There are many artistic or aesthetic decisions I made that you may not have, and which involved a lot of extra work, such as dyeing the function keys according to the resistor color code, or using Scrabble tiles for the letter keys. But these were important for me to really love it, and to think of it as an art project, rather than just a tool I use to type at work. If you do decide to make your own wooden keyboard, I encourage you to add your own artistic touches…

Full tutorial


Screenshot 4 2 14 11 48 AMEvery Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!


Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!

Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!

Join over 38,000+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord

CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers – CircuitPython.org


New Products – Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! — New Products 11/15/2024 Featuring Adafruit bq25185 USB / DC / Solar Charger with 3.3V Buck Board! (Video)

Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: A New Arduino MicroPython Package Manager, How-Tos and Much More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi

EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey

Adafruit IoT Monthly — The 2024 Recap Issue!

Maker Business – Adafruit Daily — Apple to build another chip at TSMC Arizona

Electronics – Adafruit Daily — SMT Tip – Stop moving around!

Get the only spam-free daily newsletter about wearables, running a "maker business", electronic tips and more! Subscribe at AdafruitDaily.com !


No Comments

No comments yet.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.