Funky Hardware Beats: The Story of dance-mat.js
summary
A Dance Dance Revolution controller is built from a Raspberry Pi Zero, Bare Conductive paint and a Pi Cap, a rolled-up yoga mat and Node.js, wired to appear to the host as a USB Gadget HID keyboard via configfs and eight-byte HID reports. Stepmania accepts the keystrokes; the prototype works and has run for years, but conductive paint cracks when the mat rolls, paint cabling degrades, and soldered wires or crocodile clips prove far more reliable than paint alone. Arduino would have been simpler.
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chapters (6)
- 0:00Introduction and background
- 6:49Project idea and components
- 13:07USB gadget mode setup
- 18:28Keyboard input and data processing
- 22:01Building and testing the dance mat
- 25:32Live demo and final thoughts
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