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Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen for just $1

Hacker News •
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Project Sistine, a proof-of-concept from 2018, transforms a standard MacBook into a touchscreen using only $1 of hardware. Developed by Kevin, Guillermo, and Logan in a 16-hour hackathon, the system relies on a simple mirror positioned in front of the laptop's webcam to capture finger touches or hovers on the screen. The core innovation lies in repurposing existing webcam hardware with minimal additional components: a small mirror, a rigid paper plate, a door hinge, and hot glue. The team demonstrated the system works by detecting skin color contours in the webcam feed, identifying touch points, and mapping them to on-screen coordinates via a calibration process where users follow a green dot. The open-source prototype, released under the MIT License, proves a low-cost touchscreen solution is feasible.