Cathy Fang, Yang Zhang, Matthew Dworman and Chris Harrison have created Wireality: a haptic system that enables tangible VR interactions by limiting the dexterity of the wearer.

Most virtual reality systems have hand-tracking controllers with buttons and “rumble pack”-style haptic feedback — a feeble facsimile of authentic interaction with real-world objects. Utilizing a shoulder-mounted system that connects to various points of the wearer’s hands, Wireality employs spring-loaded wires to physically prevent motion, simulating the experience of encountering physical obstacles.

A Teensy 3.2 controls two L298 H-Bridge motor drivers, based on commands received over USB from custom VR software. This activates a solenoid which arrests the wearer’s motion to provide a sensation of physical interaction. More information can be found on Chris’s web site, in the original paper, and in the video below.

Karan Ahuja, Sujeath Pareddy, Robert Xiao, Mayank Goel and Chris Harrison have created LightAnchors — a new technology for AR anchoring and data transmission using existing light sources such as LEDs and light bulbs.

Whereas typical AR solutions require the manual placement of physical markers, LightAnchors can take advantage of the LEDs already found in, for example, most appliances. And by rapidly blinking that LED, kind of like Timex Datalink watches in the 90s, which used flashes from a CRT to receive its data, the LightAnchors team have created a glue gun that transmits its temperature, a parking meter that transmits rate info, and a security camera that broadcasts its own privacy policy. A Teensy 3.2 is used to modulate light sources at 120 FPS using the built-in DAC, which is imperceptible to most humans. Learn more on Chris’s web site, in the original paper, or in the video below.

Carlos has converted a small Harbor Freight Predator 212 engine from carburetion to Electronic Fuel Injection (EFI) using a Teensy 4.0. By monitoring intake air pressure (MAP) and crankshaft position, the system is able to accurately drive a fuel injector.

Carlos designed and fabricated all of the engine peripherals himself, including the fuel cell, the fuel pumping/delivery system, the intake manifold, and the trigger wheel system to measure crankshaft position. Despite having a fair amount of mechanical engineering experience, this was his first electronics project. More information can be found on the project’s web page, with source available on GitHub, and a demonstration in the video below.

Teensy hobbyist 1101010 has created a charming project named “Dial-a-Memory.” The system uses a Teensy 3.2 plus Audio Adaptor Board to play various audio files depending on the number dialed on the attached telephone.

Examples include files from archive.org, Morse code “fortune cookies”, spoken versions of numbers like e and pi, and even a Choose Your Own Adventure-style game. After initial experiments with the Teensy wired directly into the phone, 1101010 switched to a SLIC (subscriber line interface) module that allows any phone to be plugged into the system.

More information and source code can be found on GitHub, with the latest hardware in development on EasyEDA.

Fiction writer Benjamin T. Riitgers is a big fan of labor-saving technology. He decided to outsource the task of naming characters to a Teensy 2.0.

By augmenting a USB Human Interface Device (HID) with a second button, and the ability to read from a microSD card, he created The Character Name Generator – inspired by Matt Richardson’s Awesome Button. Now instead of a synonym for “awesome”, the non-manual nomenclator injects a random first and last name without any typing or thought required! All that was left was the addition of a snazzy case, and now the character name generator was all ready for automated appellation! Find more detail, including full instructions, on Instructables.

Final Dave has written an extensive blog post detailing how to create your own electronic drum set.

Whereas a typical electronic drum kit from the likes of Zildjian, DW, or Roland might cost $5K+, Dave’s DIY drums ended up around $300 including the $150 stand (though not including the laptop required to run the Digital Audio Workstation software). The system largely consists of piezo disks connected to a Teensy 3.2, in turn connected to a laptop via USB MIDI. The laptop then uses the MT Power Drum Kit VST virtual instrument plug-in with the Reaper DAW to produce real drum sounds. These can of course be listened to over headphones, which means that depending on what you select for what Dave refers to as “something to hit with your drumsticks”, you should end up with a practice kit that won’t annoy your neighbours. Dave chose LaserDiscs, which is both a pretty cool way to put some new funk into “obsolete” old tech, and, one would imagine, pretty cyberpunk-looking in practice. Prior to embarking on the project, Dave “had almost no understanding of electronics whatsoever”, so the project write-up is written with accessibility in mind, and includes links to all of the required equipment, as well as parts, and of course the code to make it all work. Check it out on Dave’s blog, and as a fun bonus, check out this wearable offshoot project: drum gloves!

The motivations for and outcomes of vaping are myriad, but this project caught our attention as perhaps one of the more unexpected.

Beginning as GufuGud (Icelandic for “Vapor God”), an open-source software and hardware solution for the measurement of vaporizer atomizer coils, it became apparent that the same data acquisition of precision voltage and current measurement could be applicable to numerous other cases. Using the same Ti INA260 Precision Digital Current and Power Monitor, connected to a Teensy 3.6 via I2C, the PowerProf project collects voltage and current data, serializes it, and sends it to a PC over USB, where it can be analyzed using a collection of Python tools. The INA260 current sensor can handle 0-36V and up to 15A continuous current, with 16-bit 1.25 mA / 1.25 mV resolution. This example output shows a high-end Evolv DNA 100C vaporizer (top) compared to a cheap $20 Chinese box (bottom):

Software and hardware repos can both be found on GitHub.

Branden Hall (with assistance from his son, Kai!) has created a story-driven interactive installation for the Constellation regional Burning Man event.

Inspired by narratives like Carl Sagan’s Contact and The Last Starfighter, the Sidereal hexagonal shard is presented as an artifact of unknown origin. Warning signs prevent access to the artifact during the day, with accompanying fictional logs of a local university’s discovery and investigation of the relic. At night, however, the device begins glowing and playing melodies, and a “missing” poster that reveals the mysterious disappearance of the investigation’s lead scientist is “discovered.” Visitors then attempt to unlock the puzzle contained within by observing the results of their interactions with the device, and the “truth” about its origin is revealed to those who complete all six stages.

Source code for the Teensy 3.6-powered enigma can be found on GitHub.

Mechanical engineer and YouTuber Clay Builds has is restoring a late-90s robot using a Teensy 4.0 and ESP32.

The Nomadic Technologies N150 was purchased at auction in a non-functional state. Clay is attempting to “rebrain” it with modern microcontrollers in order to use the original ultrasonic rangefinders and bump sensors in conjunction with modern SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) algorithms.

Teensy is used to read the ultrasonic array, limit switches and motor encoders, with the latter used for navigation via dead reckoning. It is also used for the motor drivers, which provide locomotion. Source code for the current iteration can be found on GitHub, and a detailed video can be found below.

charje has created the Power User Keyboard, a unique custom keyboard with a non-conventional bottom row of keys. The result of the extensive documentation of the project is effectively a general-purpose guide for the creation of Teensy-based custom keyboards.

With full detail of parts, cost, and tools to create the layout, case, and firmware (automatically generated by QMK), charje’s project write-up provides a complete end-to-end roadmap. We’d love to see a 7-row ThinkPad-style keyboard implemented along similar lines! Check out the project’s sourcehut page for more details.