Lumino - an arduino input device

Hi readers!

I'm here to share with you an experiment I've been having fun these days.

While I was playing DOTuino, I found out that I could use a light sensor to make my personal and unique "joystick".

Using my hand to change the light intensity over the sensors I could create some kind of interesting input.

Once I came up with the idea, developing a circuit to achieve it was really simple. All I needed was 2 light sensors (LDR), a couple of wires and an arduino.

For a while, I winged it with some pasta box. Anyone there with a 3d printer? =P

Just before making the little holes (for the sensors)

Usb connection

In order to test its responsiveness in a real application, I made a simple game with python + pygame.

Below, a video recorded with my brother.

Actually, while the hand comes closer to the sensor, the light variation is smoother than the presented in this game, which I deliberately made it detect just 3 states.

If you liked the idea and wanna try this at home or contribute, it's all open source.
Below, links with code:

• lumino (arduino code + experimental python driver);
• lumino-projects (sample code using the above python driver, including the game featured in the video).

Hope you liked it!

Feel free to leave comments to this post!

Ronald Kaiser