Hi..I'm designing a mouse for children affected with cerebral palsy.
They can't move their hands,but can give a force through their body weight to their hand.This(force from hand) should be converted into position(cursor position).I'm going to use strain gauge for this job to move the mouse cursor in the computer screen area...
But,I'm facing a problem..the problem is I need to simulate the left- and right-click now...i can't use switch because the child can't do that..
I need to find some mechanism for this by the same time the new sensor system should not disturb the cursor movement...
can anyone provide me a mechanism of doing this...
kindly reply to this request.

Arivu..

 

Would it be practical to get the individual to use their feet to operate a couple of pedals?

hgmjr

 

I would have suggested what hmgjr did and I agree that is a practical solution.

I asked in another thread why you wanted to know the force exerted on a mouse, purely out of curiosity; I now know.

I think it's a good idea and wish you the best of luck.

 

Thanks a lot 4 involvement from members..
but the problem is they can't move their foot also due to the nature of the paralysis..

 

Is head movement reliable? Maybe any rotation over 35 degrees +_, with red & green LEDs for visual feed back; one shots to gen. pulses.

 

You may be able to use a puffer/sucker. This is a small plastic flexible tube that can be sucked or blown into. At the end of the tube is an atmospheric pressure sensor that translates the pressure in the tube into mouse clicks. For example, the individual could blow for left mouse button and suck for right button. The sensitivity could be adjusted to suit the user's strength.

hgmjr

 

puffer/sucker may be useful for x or y direction..but for movement between x and y direction,it is not possible..if I want to move in a direction between x and y direction I need to suck and puff at simultaneously,which is not possible..and we need to have a cursor movement all over the screen..not only in x or y direction

 

You could try a "sqeeze" sensor on the mouse handle to act as the mouse click. The act of squeezing is different to the downward pressure used to move the mouse, so even with limited movement they could probably separate the two actions.

 

Hi..I'm designing a mouse for children affected with cerebral palsy.
They can't move their hands,but can give a force through their body weight to their hand.This(force from hand) should be converted into position(cursor position).I'm going to use strain gauge for this job to move the mouse cursor in the computer screen area...
But,I'm facing a problem..the problem is I need to simulate the left- and right-click now...i can't use switch because the child can't do that..
I need to find some mechanism for this by the same time the new sensor system should not disturb the cursor movement...
can anyone provide me a mechanism of doing this...
kindly reply to this request.

Arivu..

My suggestion to use the puffer/sucker was not to manage the cursor movement around the screen. Instead, my idea was to use it to simulate the right and left mouse buttons. In the quoted information from your initial post, I understood that you had already solved the screen positioning part of the problem and was interested in suggestions from the forum members of a way to manage the right and left mouse buttons. It is appears from your post above that I misinterpreted your need.

I still think the sucker/puffer would be a reasonable substitution for the right and left mouse buttons. I would even imagine that it might be possible with a bit of practice to manage the double-click function with a couple of short puffs in quick succession.

All that said, I defer to you in gauging the limitation of your CP patients.

I think your project is an interesting one and I wish you total success in its implementation.

Good Luck,
hgmjr

 

can the force be vector based?

 

Simulating left and right click is a design flaw.

Assuming the user has limited mobility and lack of control from cerebral palsy I would assume the PC software is properly designed with large control icons and a single-click event.

The puffer tube is ugle, intrusive and has hygeine and psychological issues. It's a horrible solution best suited for people with extreme loss of mobility where there are no other options.

I still believe the best system is a 2axis XY push-to move system, with a squeeze to click device on the handle. You could probably implement a double-squeeze to simulat ea double click but really the software should not require it.

 

I feel the the suggestion of using sucker/puffer is reasonable and I will try it out among some other possibilities..

Thanks,
Arivu..

 

Is it possible to use eye blinks for clicking right/left? I'm sure some simple contacts (or optic ones even) can be made as a glasses?