“For my latest electronics project, I’ve built a small USB keyboard input device for media control. The final version has three keys: play/pause, previous track, and next track. In addition, a rotary encoder allows adjusting the volume (or mutes sound when pressed). This is also my first project involving a custom circuit board — my previous electronics projects mainly involved breadboards of varying sizes.
The project is based on a Pro Micro, an Arduino-compatible ATmega 32u4 board (the 32u4 allowing to easily create USB devices). For iteration 1, I added a couple of buttons and a rotary encoder to a breadboard alongside the Pro Micro to see how I can get media controls over USB to work. Turns out, Nico Hood’s HID library makes that quite simple.”