DDR Pad
During the summer of 2005 (relatively speaking, a long time ago, during high school) I decided one weekend that I wanted to make a Stepmania/DDR pad. The project was relatively simple, four large switches connected to a slaughtered keyboard, and some wrapping to make it all look nice. Total project time was around 20 hours. To begin with I started with a board of 12mm pine plywood, and cut out the various parts. After checking that they lined up correctly I used a router and cut tracks for the wires to travel through. After placing the wires the upper squares were screwed in place and clad in 1mm aluminum sheet metal. Some small springs were inserted and the four arrow pads were placed in, which left the controller portion. I bought a USB keyboard and mapped buttons to the inputs on the pcb (some type of multiplexed input) and soldered the connections. Eventually I managed to get some arrows printed and finished up the project. A year or so later I decided to make another pad, as only having one is not nearly as fun as having two. It was also constructed in nearly the same manner, but with five switches per button (one in each corner and one centered) to improve the sensitivity.
