London, June 8 (ANI): Two Massachusetts Institute of Technology students, who were looking for a way of turning everyday objects into touchpads, have managed to develop a banana piano.
32-year-olds, Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum, have built a kit called MakeyMakey, which can turn fruit, animals and even humans into keyboards.
Rosenbaum said that the idea behind the kit was to enable people to "see the world around them as a construction kit."
Their basic kit contains a USB cable and a modified circuit board with alligator clips attached to it. The circuit board has been programmed to replace a standard computer keyboard.
Once the board has been connected to a PC or laptop via USB cable, the alligator clips can be connected to any object that conducts electricity.
When asked about the safety concerns, Rosenbaum said that the amount of current used in the equipment was very small and was not detectable when the kit was connected to the human body or animals.
He said that fuses had been integrated in the board as well as the USB port to ensure safety.
Silver said that the possibilities were endless, from connecting a broccoli head to run Skype to creating an interactive music floor. Even his cat became part of the experiment.
"Cats are conductive on their foot pads, their ears, their nose, and their mouth. But their fur is not conductive," the BBC quoted Silver as saying.
According to Rosenbaum they have been able to turn two of his friends into sound machines, a beach-ball into a game controller and have used a cup of milk to create music.
Both students have insisted that the kit is more than just a gimmick.
Silver said that dozens of people had contacted them, wanting to customise the Makey board for people who could not use a conventional keyboard.
"A father is currently turning it into a computer interface for his son who is suffering from cerebral palsy. We call this Hackcess," Silver added.
Silver and Rosenbaum had come up with this idea on a road trip in California, two years ago.
The project has already received more than 440,000 dollars in funding. (ANI)
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