The ‘ForceFeedbackShockMouse’ is a project I did together with three other students for the course ‘Multimedia Systems’. We got the idea to give the computer mouse its own will; the mouse could move the hand of the computer user instead of only the other way around. We realised this by letting an electromagnet either attract (pull) or repel (push) a piece of metal in the mouse. The electromagnet was mounted underneath a custom made mouse mat. This ‘mouse mat’, which is actually a box, has an Arduino i/o board inside, which controls two servo-motors that position the electromagnet along the X and Y axis corresponding to the mouse position. It also controls a relay board which sets the polarity of the electromagnet. You can see how it works in the movie below.

Commercial ‘Force feedback mice’ are being sold mainly for use in computer games; they vibrate when certain things happen in the game.

De verhoging van de spelbeleving is allesbehalve zaligmakend.

The ForceFeedbackShockMouse takes this idea to the extreme. We also created a game as a proof of concept.

The project got some coverage on technology blogs like techeblog.com and gizmodo.com.