Open source keyboard lets you swap parts like magnetic Lego bricks

The world is full of different keyboard layouts, but if you want one that's completely customized, down to the individual key, there's a new open source project that uses magnets to hold interchangeable pieces together.

Keybytes is an open source project that allows any ambitious builder to create a fully modular keyboard - and we’re talking FULLY modular here. Each key contains its own RISC-V microcontroller and pogo pins on all four sides, providing power and I2C connections between adjacent modules so users can rearrange the keys into different layouts. The only extra component needed is a controller module, which coordinates the individual keys and handles communication with the host computer. And good news: Despite consisting of two stacked circuit boards, it has the same footprint as the single-key modules that attach to it.

The entire thing was designed by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology freshman named Nathan Alspaugh, who is studying aerospace engineering. …