You Can Build A ‘Hand Grenade’ Keyboard To Leave The Old QWERTY Life With A Bang
Image via dapperrouge / GitHub (MIT License)
With the market saturated with thousands of keyboards to choose from, there’s something out there for everyone. This new keyboard, created by Reddit contributor dapperrouge, however, may not be on your to-buy list. The functional ‘Pineapple’ keyboard, inspired by the design of a hand grenade, is certainly something out of the box.
The MK 2 grenade used by the US Army in World War II, which the keyboard was modeled after, was known as the “pineapple” due to its bumpy outer surface. According to Hackaday, while building a custom Dactyl Manuform split keyboard, user dapperrouge realized keyboards didn’t need to be laid out in a flat grid.
When experimenting with unorthodox designs, he created the Pineapple. As per Gizmodo, it is wrapped in six columns of four keys that are attached to their own individual mechanical switches.
Of course, there’s also a “hidden” 25th key, but accessing it requires you to pull the grenade’s pin, causing the safety lever on top to activate a secret switch when pressed.
The keyboard’s frame can be 3D-printed, and dapperrouge has made all of the requisite files available on GitHub under the MIT License for download. Inside the grenade is also an Arduino Pro Micro running the QMK keyboard firmware. And due to the fact it only has 25 keys – missing one letter from the English alphabet – each button has been programmed to type out an explosive sound effect instead of a letter.
While it may not seem very user-friendly, this could be a great way to end your dreary work video calls with a “Boom!”
[via Gizmodo, cover image via dapperrouge / GitHub (MIT License)]
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