Linear Potentiometer Challenge March 3rd to April 30th

Hey All!

Following two successful scrap challenges, I wanted to start up another scrap challenge for a unique useful part that I feel has been underutilized in the hackspace. Any time I tell someone that we have a box of these, ideas start to circulate, so it feels like the right thing to do is hold another challenge.

This challenge is the Linear Potentiometer Challenge. What is a linear potentiometer? They are basically variable resistors that slide along a track. If you’ve ever seen a volume slider, thats what is probably driving it.

They look like this:

I challenge you to make something cool by the end of April using one or more of these sliders.

Here’s PDF with rules and scope of this challenge:

https://ufile.io/ix8a0

(If someone has a better place to share this, please let me know).

A few ideas to get you started:
Make a cool light controller
Make a DJ, VJ, Midi, or some other controller of physical things
Use one or more as a positioning sensor to determine how far something has moved
use two or more at right-angles to create a 2-dimensional input device, or position feedback
Use two ganged log sliders in opposite orientations to create a high sensitivity slider.
Why not make a physical volume slider for your computer?

Or even just use a couple of them as a cheap linear sliding rail.

Go wild, think of crazy things, and make!

Feel free to post your project here, or a link to a build log. Progress updates in a build log will help encourage others to participate.

Prizes to be determined, but I’ll update this post once prizes are determined (if you have a prize we can give away, please contact me).

Good Luck!

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Just to help people get started, I’m trying to build out a few things others will need. Please contact me if you are interested (note, at the time of writing, neither of these are completed).

Item 1: Eagle CAD part
Item 2: Fusion360 Model

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