MMA7260 is 3-axes accelerometer and measure the accelerations in X Y
and Z axis with range +-1.5 g to 6 g.(software selectable sensitivity). Adding
the ARM7 with USB interface and the serial flash memory open up possibilities
to implement a lot of interesting projects with this small board. The original
idea for this board was inspired by the movie Minority
Report where Tom Cruise instead of mouse used his hands to interface with
the computers from the future. Searching the net for more info on this subject
we found similar project here.
It looks not bad but the acceleromaters used are 2 axis and the whole project
was done too complex. Our goal was to make so small PCB which to be able to
attach to your finger and with mini USB connector to be able to connect to any
PC running Windows and to use it as 3d mouse i.e. moving your finger left -
right-up-down to move your mouse cursor and if you move your finger toward the
screen to make the mouse "click" action.
This of course doesn't limit the applications of this board other cool application
to be made is for instance car performance logger: as we have the acceleration
and have microcontroller which can measure the time we can easily compute the
velocity V = A * t, then the distance S = V * t and as the accelerometer is
3-axis we can calculate at what distance in 3D space the object moves. If we
know your car mass we can calculate the force applied F = m * A and from this
we can calculate your real car power P = V * A, so having this little board
inside your car and knowing your car mass you can have calculated in real time
your car characteristics: Acceleration (0-100 kmh / 0-60mph), Braking distance,
Horsepower, etc etc and remember these are the actual measurements on your car
not catalogue data. Yet another application is to measure the vibrations and
shock on objects, for instance put one such device with battery power supply
inside your parcel before send it by FedEx and then the recipient dump the info
logged - what time it took, what velocity parcel had, did they drop it on the
floor (i.e. at what max shock it was exposed), what time it was actually moved
and with what speed, how many time it stayed rest i.e. it didn't moved and you
can evaluate the different couriers efficiency this way?
FEATURES:
ORDERING CODES: MOD-MMA7260 Completely assembled and tested board, no USB cable included