Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dry erase board lined with IR sensors to record pen strokes [video]

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 67 posts

Re: Dry erase board lined with IR sensors to record pen strokes [video]

#31

Post by IshKebab »

olympus wrote: post #22
arey_abhishek wrote: post #13

OP here. If you'd like to see a kickstarter project out of this, please upvote this comment!

Not that you asked, but here are some ways I think you could go about releasing this to the public and make some money off of it (only one method uses Kickstarter): 1. You could do a Kickstarter where you sold a kit that you sourced with hardware from Alibaba and code you wrote yourself. This would be a lot of effort, but could be fairly profitable if the KS succeeds. 2. You could release some how to instructions on…

You make orders of magnitude more money through Kickstarter than either of the other options. Much more stress too admittedly.

Re: Dry erase board lined with IR sensors to record pen strokes [video]

#33

Post by jballanc »

jwcacces wrote: post #16

My high school had these in 1995. Each marker color had a different reflective pattern on a band around the tip so the scanning laser could read it like a bar code. I remember the eraser having a solid reflective band all the way around. It was pretty cool, as we all got whiteboard "transcripts" emailed to us at the end of the class that you could play back / pause / rewind / etc... whenever you wanted. Also, these b…

Also had one of these in high school, but connected to an uplink for a distance learning setup. There were about 20 of us in the actual classroom, and then 3 or 4 other classrooms would get the same whiteboard feed live.

Re: Dry erase board lined with IR sensors to record pen strokes [video]

#34

Post by toolzytofndpwd »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #17
raldi wrote: post #14

This is cool as a DIY project, but digital whiteboards have been around since at least 1991: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Board

The one at my high school (admittedly, over a decade ago) was ridiculously expensive, though. If this is cheap, it could be pretty great for a cash-strapped startup, striking the balance between a smart board and a person with a cellphone snapping photos. (The expensiveness of the whiteboard made it even funnier when a teacher used a Sharpie permanent marker on it one day.)

ethanol or methanol will clean it up.

Re: Dry erase board lined with IR sensors to record pen strokes [video]

#35

Post by jonsen »

toolzytofndpwd wrote: post #34
pavel_lishin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one at my high school (admittedly, over a decade ago) was ridiculously expensive, though. If this is cheap, it could be pretty great for a cash-strapped startup, striking the balance between a smart board and a person with a cellphone snapping photos. (The expensiveness of the whiteboard made it even funnier when a teacher used a Sharpie permanent marker on it one day.)

ethanol or methanol will clean it up.

Or a white board pen. Just paint over it with an erasable pen, and it will all go when wiped.

Re: Dry erase board lined with IR sensors to record pen strokes [video]

#36

Post by joezydeco »

One tip from someone that has worked with IR emitters/detectors: make sure your product can handle direct and reflected sunlight.

I'd hate to see you getting all the way through a kickstarter and then finding out you need to rework your frame to reject ambient and stray IR.

Re: Dry erase board lined with IR sensors to record pen strokes [video]

#37

Post by joezydeco »

arey_abhishek wrote: post #19
raldi wrote: post #14

This is cool as a DIY project, but digital whiteboards have been around since at least 1991: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Board

All the previous whiteboards force you to buy a projector or invest in smart pens. This costs ~150USD to make vs. 1500USD+ for the kind of smart boards that existed in the past.

You get 42" versions from China for USD$118 each. I'd focus on the software improvements and benefits.

http://goo.gl/N02wRa

Re: Dry erase board lined with IR sensors to record pen strokes [video]

#38

Post by skynetv2 »

very cool.

practically thinking, why not buy a large touch screen and use some sort of stylus instead of this white board?

in both cases, the user needs to buy special hardware. so i would think the costs would be comparable.

genuine question, not diminishing your work

Re: Dry erase board lined with IR sensors to record pen strokes [video]

#39

Post by phpnode »

skynetv2 wrote: post #38

very cool. practically thinking, why not buy a large touch screen and use some sort of stylus instead of this white board? in both cases, the user needs to buy special hardware. so i would think the costs would be comparable. genuine question, not diminishing your work

comparably large touch screens are going to be order(s) of magnitude more expensive than this.

Re: Dry erase board lined with IR sensors to record pen strokes [video]

#40

Post by phpnode »

olympus wrote: post #22
arey_abhishek wrote: post #13

OP here. If you'd like to see a kickstarter project out of this, please upvote this comment!

Not that you asked, but here are some ways I think you could go about releasing this to the public and make some money off of it (only one method uses Kickstarter): 1. You could do a Kickstarter where you sold a kit that you sourced with hardware from Alibaba and code you wrote yourself. This would be a lot of effort, but could be fairly profitable if the KS succeeds. 2. You could release some how to instructions on…

> 3. You could release your code on GitHub for free and let people pay you out of the kindness of their hearts, either through PayPal, Patreon, or Gratipay.

Please don't do this, you will starve. Very few people are able to make enough money from open source in this way and I don't think this is the kind of thing that's suited to it.

Commercialize this technology, market it, sell it.

Post reply on HN