June 22, 2015

Controlling motorised desks with The Force and Arduino

For those of you lucky enough to have a motorised desk at the workplace that allows control of the height at the push of a button - it's now possible to create your own heigh controller that can give the uninitiated the view of seeing you move a large object with only the wave of your hand.

The hardware to make this possible has been documented by Joakim Christoffersson, who hacked the motorised desk height controller by adding an ultrasonic distance sensor and an Arduino to the mix. The sensor is enclosed in a neat case, and detects the distance between itself and the user, which is then used to control the desk motors. And thus you can then be seen to control the desk with "The Force" - as shown in the following video:

 Certainly something different and a lot of fun. To learn how to make your own version, check out Joakim's project page. And for more, we're on facebookGoogle+, and twitter - so follow us for news and product updates as well.

If you need to add external hardware or devices to your next Arduino project, you'll need a protoshield to mount the external circuitry. In doing so, consider our range of ProtoShields. From the tiny LeoStick to the Mega we have a wide range to suit your application.

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