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silent virtual drum wristwrest

End the concentration-sapping sound of colleagues drumming on their desks while waiting for the computer to do something
 
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I can't be the only one who gets intensely infuriated by the desk drummers in my open plan office. Every so often, one of these folks will find themselves waiting for their computer to complete some task, and the only way for them to cope with the wait is to start hammering out some impatient drumbeat on their desk.

A lot of these folks have headphones on, listening to their favourite music, which they are no doubt accompanying with their masterful drum riff.

I hate it.

The solution.

Everyone here has standard issue wristrests. Keyboard-width gel-filled doodaas to keep the wrists elevated when typing.

Build a drum synthesiser into these, so that different areas on the surface can be programmed to synthesise a different drum sound. The areas could me marked out on the surface. Equip these guys with a "line in" and a headphone socket so that you can plug your mp3 player or whatever into it, add your own drumsound to it and listen to the results on your headphone.

For those who play their tunes on their PC, I'm sure that suitable software jiggery pokery could be employed to overlay the drum track onto whatever they are playing there.

Finally, and here's the really important bit, use whatever materials are required so that no sound is physically generated when the wrist rest is struck.

Now, all the drummers on the floor can get their rocks off playing along to whoever, without driving the rest of us to mindless acts of violence.

It's a triple winner:

For the drummer- A much better sound

For the annoyed co-worker- Blissful silence

For their employer- A fortune saved in lost productivity and broken stationery. (I tend to deal with the current situation by hurling pens/pencils/staplers with extreme force).

ChangeSomething, May 24 2005

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       Just be glad you don't sit anywhere near the secretaries.   

       Also, it may help some if you come up with something that will ensure that //no sound is physically generated when the wrist rest is struck// rather than lobbing us the concept and asking us to colour it in for you.
calum, May 24 2005
  

       do I have to do everything around here?? ;) The silicon gel in the current ones seems good in terms of silence, but a selection of content and covering materials would need to be tested before making any final selections.
ChangeSomething, May 24 2005
  

       Yeah, but I've battered out some pretty neat robotik drum patterns on the silicon wrist rest I used to have and I'm fairly sure I didn't imagine the noise they made. I am totally flummoxed as to how you can eliminate the noise at source, which leads me to suggest that some sort of repetitive othernoise be piped in, as a mask.   

       Welcome, though, Mr(s) Something.
calum, May 24 2005
  
      
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