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Nomination rules:
Please suggest nominees for the best input device related project or innovation in 2016. You have to give a short motivation for each suggestion. The project or innovation must be newer than Thursday 3 December, 2015 to qualify for this year's DTAs. You cannot nominate your own projects or innovations.

Current suggestions:

• Zealencios
• XMIT hall effect keyboards
• Model MF
• GH-122
• :~$ynth
• FSSK/FEXT
• mini xWhatsit
• HaaTa's force curve gauge
• Ellipse's Model F replicas
• MrBishop's Alps Switch Top Removal Tool
• Silicone Gel keycaps
• The Dactyl project
• Norbauer CM TKL cases
• Wooting one
• Skullydazed Clueboard CNC cases
• ISO50
• Planet 6 by kurplop

The first round ends on Saturday 26 November, 23:59:59 UTC.

Zealencios. I hate putting on o-rings, and the travel reduction you have to deal with in order to get the noise reduction you want. These things are just great!

I'm horribly biased but: XMIT Hall Effect Keyboards.

XMIT wrote: ↑I'm horribly biased but: XMIT Hall Effect Keyboards.

You cannot nominate your own projects or innovations. Darn rulebreaker.

I nomintate XMIT Hall Effect Keyboards

You'll all be pleased to know that MrsXMIT called me an idiot for not following the rules.

Anyway, I nominate lot_lizard. If nothing else he helped unload my shed of Model F boards that no one else wanted. I've been watching his development with excitement all year.

We forgive you.

Not my project, but in the sense of full disclosure, I did build one and help debug some of the issues with it (firmware, plate mounting issues)

samwisekoi (Geekhack)'s GH-122: an exercise on audacity that almost rises to kbdfr's level.

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=80326.0

This might be a weird one and not as recognized in the DT community, but I would like to nominate

Hunger Works Studio/Binge's :~$ynth Casting tool.

This has opened up a new avenue and an easy way to open the door to new Artisan makers. We have even seen some established artisans switch to using it as well. I think this really broadened the artisan community.

I'm struggling to pick the category it belongs in, but I believe it's here... WCass deserves nomination for his refactoring of the xWhatsit into a mini-xWhatsit - a 40% smaller form factor that is leveraged by both the Ellipse and MF projects. It's a huge first step in seeing Capsense case form factors shrink

EDIT:
I would nominate I$'s FSSK PCB as well, but if I remember right... That already happened last year. Not sure the rules in place, but now that we know it works so well, it would be viewed differently I think.

lot_lizard's Model MF; a community project taken to a whole different level. Quite an accomplishment, not that anything else was expected given the knowledge pool of the people involved, but still. Makes me proud to be part of the community.

Let's do this properly Khers:

I'd like to hereby nominate lot_lizard for him impressive project: "(Model MF) Remodeling the Model M"

The scope and effort in details alone make this one of the most impressive DT projects in a long time!

workshop-f7/remodeling-the-model-m-t13796.html

On a phone, anything fancy like that was out of the question but I concur, your nomination contains some crucial pieces of information mine lacks

After all, the important part is that the motherfucker gets nominated

Another project that I believe should be nominated is "Wodan-To-Member: Recycler Finds" because Wodan is making his mechanical keyboard finds available to others at very fair pricing:

the-clubhouse-f95/wodan-to-member-recyc ... 14655.html

I'd like to nominate Wodan for his HADapter GB too. It was so simple, but so expertly carried out. The smoothest and fastest GB I've ever participated in.

I forgot about this one; I'd hereby like to nominate HaaTa for his elaborate force curve gauge project since it provides very important data about mechanical keyboards on a very professional level to us. HaaTa went to great lengths with this as you can see here:

photos-f62/the-problem-with-mechanical- ... ml#p339559

seebart wrote: ↑I forgot about this one; I'd hereby like to nominate HaaTa for his elaborate force curve gauge project since it provides very important data about mechanical keyboards on a very professional level to us. HaaTa went to great lengths with this as you can see here:

photos-f62/the-problem-with-mechanical- ... ml#p339559

Damn you!! I wanted to nominate that here as well. If you can only do one nomination, this would be mine. Just like haata, I have the mind of an engineer and love nothing more than cold, hard facts. His work is revolutionary and is only emphasised by his latest contribution:
photos-f62/the-problem-with-mechanical- ... 15133.html

I've updated the nominee list.

seebart wrote: ↑Another project that I believe should be nominated is "Wodan-To-Member: Recycler Finds" because Wodan is making his mechanical keyboard finds available to others at very fair pricing:

the-clubhouse-f95/wodan-to-member-recyc ... 14655.html

scottc wrote: ↑I'd like to nominate Wodan for his HADapter GB too. It was so simple, but so expertly carried out. The smoothest and fastest GB I've ever participated in.

Wodan is sadly not eligible for nominations as he is a member of the DTA team. This rule is in place to prevent unfair advantages. I'll keep the nominations in mind should this rule change.

I'll nominate idollar for the FSSK and FEXT project, a PCB that was hard to design and that needed an EE just like him to happen. It gave me one of the nicest feeling keyboards I have, which means something. It's also the heart of lot_lizard's awesome replacement project. Both projects are great showcases of what some of the great people in this community can do.

(I know it started in 2015 and was nominated last year, but it was far from done last year, and the GB only happened this year, so I think it should be eligible.)

chuckdee wrote: ↑Zealencios. I hate putting on o-rings, and the travel reduction you have to deal with in order to get the noise reduction you want. These things are just great!

Do you have them in hand and tried them?

I think QMX Clips were first and Zealencios are the clones .. but the former work only on PCB-mounted switches.
By the way I tried to order myself some of those but for some strange reason GMK does not ship to every EU country, but they do ship to USA and Canada ... WTF?!

I can proxy you some when I order mine. Is this a nomination for QMX?

I second the nomination for the Zealencio silencing clips. GMK clips were a fine idea but they are useless for the vast majority of mechanical keyboard users since they only support PCB mounted switches. But Zealencios also work with plate-mounted switches, which is an amazing feat of engineering and also a response to the true needs of the community. Although they haven't shipped yet, I am going on the strength of Zeal's reputation, the typing demonstration, but most importantly the fact they would likely not meet next year's award cut-off since they are shipping imminently.

I would nominate Ellipse's F62/F77 mechanical buckling spring replica keyboard project. There is more to a great project than just technical design. It is surely a huge logistical challenge to get the keyboards produced in quantity in a foreign factory, and I don't recall any recent project that is this audacious. Also, Ellipse's obsessive attention to detail sets a high standard for the community. However this project has won last year's Best Input Device category and I am not sure if it is admissable for this year as well.

I also nominate MrBishop's Alps Switch Top Removal Tool (GH thread, DT thread). It is sometimes necessary to open Alps switches, for lubrication or modification. But this normally requires a fair amount of effort and the use of both hands to pry open the switch, which is inconvenient especially if the switch is loose or is mounted in a lightweight object. The Alps Switch Top Removal Tool is a simple yet effective tool that makes opening up Alps switches a breeze, as MrBishop's demonstration video illustrates:
Also, MrBishop has released the design files for the tool as open source, which deserves credit.

You can be nominated for the same thing multiple times so long as it remains active and hasn't won a previous year.

I've updated the nominee list to include the FSSK/FEXT and the Alps switch top removal tool. I'll check wether Ellipse is eligible because that's a differnt category.
EDIT: FSSK/FEXT and Ellipse's Model Fs are eligible because there was significant project work done this year.

I'd like to nominate Silicone Gel keycaps (link to Massdrop sale and review on YouTube). It seems like an interesting and rather unexpected innovation, that came out of nowhere (or rather China, probably). Not only the caps can be bent, they also absorb keystroke impacts pretty well.

And another nomination: the Dactyl project by Matt Adereth.

The Dactyl is a parameterized, split-hand, concave, columnar, ergonomic keyboard.

In other words, it's insanely cool: a 3D-printed split ergonomic keyboard, but contoured (unlike the ErgoDox) and you can configure the layout in Clojure (~modern Lisp) source code for printing.
The source was publicly released on GitHub on 2015-12-04, thus it should fit the rules.

lot_lizard's Model MF!!

Definitely need to second the nomination of the Model MF for project of the year, and lot_lizard as project manager of the year. He's been going at this one tirelessly for most of 2016, and come up with innovations even IBM in their heyday would have taken note of.

Don't forget newly registered community member Norbauer. He's run an impressive IC over at GH during his development of the CNC aluminium case for the popular recent Cooler Master TKL keyboards:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=80317.0

The GB for these cases just closed ... sorry sometimes I'm retarded and just too slow:
group-buys-f50/cnc-aluminium-case-for-c ... 15103.html

It's an awesome development at a great price with full community integration during the development. Textbook, Norbauer!

There are 42 hours left for nominations. If you have more projects or innovations to nominate, now's the time to do so.

Hello, i want to nominate Wooting analog mechanical keyboard, the guys did a presentation at the Darmstadt meetup, are very passionate about there project and did a great Q/A. The project is growing and growing in demand and there were realy interested by the few suggestion about proposing kit for the keyboard, so yeah i think they deserve to be here.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wo ... se-movemen
https://wooting.nl/

Thank you and have a nice day.