Two design projects have been posted online that bring the animal kingdom and
the computer world a lot closer together.
The computer mouse may have been named by the
Stanford
Research Institute because of the way the attached lead looks like a tail,
but two designers have taken things a little further.
Environmental studies graduate Noah Weinstein and biologist Christa Canida
bought a frozen mouse from a US pet shop and used its skin to cover a computer
mouse.
The duo shared the instructions on the
Instructibles
website so that other people can do the same.
The 'Mouse Mouse' would be the perfect accompaniment to a separate design
project of turning wildlife into computer kit.
Artist Kasey McMahon bought a
stuffed
beaver and hollowed it out using a kitchen knife before adapting it to house
computer components.
"I am interested in the way we interact with nature. As we become
increasingly reliant on technology, we become disconnected from our natural
environment," said McMahon.
"Nature then is a spectacle (i.e. holy crap, that's a beaver!), an outing, a
thing that is nonexistent in our daily lives."
Compubeaver uses an Intel Core2 Duo processor, 160GB laptop hard drive, 1GB
Ram, a Panasonic 8x slim DVD burner and an 80mm Tornado fan.
Weinstein defended the project to turn a real mouse into a computer mouse
after receiving comments such as "You disgust me" and "Gross".
"I think things like labour exploitation, war, apathy and the millions of
people that are starving to death while America dumps its excess grain at sea
are gross," he said.
"We are just a couple of creative and dedicated individuals who put a
computer mouse inside a frozen mouse that was destined to be eaten by a snake."
Do you agree?
Have your say on this article