It is hardly a secret that our world was built for able-bodied people and that people living with disabilities can feel like they’re an afterthought. In the United States, standards for handicapped parking spots weren’t enacted on a federal level until the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) passed in 1990 just 25 years ago. Even today, accommodations for people with disabilities are woefully inadequate and that is particularly glaring when it comes to consumer technology, which should be relatively easy to address compared to infrastructure. To make computing more accessible, Oscar did his part and designed this DIY mouth-operated mouse.
There are some mouth-operated mice on the market, but not as many as you might think. And they tend to be very expensive — much more so than they should be, given the relatively simple and affordable hardware involved. That might be acceptable for people who can get them through their health insurance provider, a government program, or a charity. But what about everyone else? Computers are essential to modern life, so are those people simply expected to go without? For many people with mobility issues, access to the internet through a computer is one of the few ways to maintain social contact.
Oscar recognized that and the Mouth-Operated Mouse V3 is the result. Its hardware is affordable, it is relatively easy to build, it will work with any modern computer running any operating system that supports mice.
The design is straightforward and consists of a mouthpiece the user can “sip” on or “puff” into in order to trigger clicks, as well as move like a joystick to direct the cursor. Sips and puffs can be further divided into soft and hard, to support additional useful actions (like scrolling) if the user has the ability to perform them.
That works through an Arduino Pro Micro (or Arduino Leonardo) development board, which shows up as a standard USB HID (Human Interface Device) when plugged into a computer. It detects sips and puffs with an NPA-300B-001G pressure sensor and movement with a generic analog joystick module. The enclosure and body are 3D-printable, with the total build cost being approximately $30 USD.
Oscar even created a simple Python utility that includes training exercises, profiles with their own tuning, calibration tools, and a visualizer for the joystick.
This is the kind of work that we love to see, because it has the potential to make a genuine impact on the lives of real people. If you know someone that would benefit, you can find all of the Mouth-Operated Mouse V3 files on GitHub.
