Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Optical Mouse Used As Cheap Motion Sensor

Posted by timothy on from the goldbergerism dept.

drphil writes " Dr. Tuck Wah Ng, a member of the Faculty of Engineering at the National University of Singapore uses an optical mouse as a cheap non-contact motion sensor in his research. If a resolution of a little less than 60 microns is sufficient, you really can't beat the price. Dr. Ng has studied the viscoelastic deformation of plastics using a hacked optical mouse - published in J. Chem. Ed. vol 81, p 1628, 2004. You'd need to be a subscriber of the journal to see anything but the abstract, but any university science/chemistry library would have a copy of this issue of the Journal of Chemical Education. (Viscoelastic deformation, in plain English, is the degree to which a plastic stretches when you pull on it)"

15 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. Impressive... by xNoLaNx · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's a nice link there, I'm sure the first 1 or 2 people who saw it may have been interested.

  2. Re:already... by mordors9 · · Score: 4, Funny

    The article clearly says to go to your nearest Chem Dept Library and read the article.. Sheesh.

  3. I pity all the students.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    ..who are trying to use this server's enrollment system just right now.

  4. Dr. Tuck Wah Ng by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Just how is "Wah Ng" pronounced...?

  5. A similiar hack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Researchers looking into the hearing of flies attach the fly to a fixed support above it, and allow it's feet to touch a ping pong ball dotted with sharpie-marker dots. The ball rests on an optical mouse with some foam to hold it in place. By playing sounds from different directions and measuring where the fly moved in reaction they where able to determine how directionally-accurate the hearing of the fly was.

    This is all per some TV show, maybe Discovery's This Week

  6. Plastic? by snotman88 · · Score: 2, Funny

    What plastic was he testing? Was it his mouse cable?

    --
    --- MS: "Working software is soooo nineties!"
    1. Re:Plastic? by niteice · · Score: 2, Funny

      No, the plastic on the server case, shortly before it was /.ed.

      --
      ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
  7. Re:Fun experiment by rylin · · Score: 1, Funny

    /etc/init.d/gpm stop

  8. Looks like.... by rune2 · · Score: 3, Funny

    their webserver has undergone Viscoelastic deformation

  9. creation by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 3, Funny

    any university science/chemistry library would have a copy of this issue of the Journal of Chemical Education

    Not Bob Jones university. On the 2,253,532nd day, God created the optical mouse, and thou shalt not play God, except on TV with an (800) number subtitle for donations.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  10. Re:Fun experiment by scribblej · · Score: 4, Funny

    Did you try picking it up first? Works for me...

    heh!

  11. Dr. Ng by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Here's a quarter, buy yourself a vowel."

    A shiny for the first person to get that one.

  12. Re:i didnt rtfa by iggymanz · · Score: 2, Funny

    also, when they have a head cold, the Knights Who Say Ni!, say Ng!

  13. Re:Slightly pedantic, but.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yes. You must have missed the Slashdot story from 15 years ago with the headline "Cheap Motion Sensor Used as Optical Mouse".

  14. Monty Python and the Holy Grail: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    "He says they've already got one..."