This project's objective was to create a cheap and personalized trackball by hacking existing hardware.

Trackballs are often used by people with motor disabilities as alternative input devices to the conventional computer mouse. However, this kind of equipment is rather expensive and, to little surprise, there are not many choices in different devices compared to regular input hardware. For this reason, I aimed to create a cheap solution based on some hacked hardware that can be used both for personal computers and mobile phones.

The first step towards the trackball was to identify a cheap and hackable bluetooth mouse, which pairs reliably with phones/tablets and computers. The IC board of this mouse needed to be removed from its casing and a new, accessible shell had be modeled and 3D-printed. Certainly, this new shell had to be easy to operate by people with a motor condition, which ist not the case for may of the conventional computer mouse.

The videos below show the first working prototype and a time-lapse video of its creation process.

Demo Video of the Interface

Related Links and Images