Build your own keyboard! Want to add text to your project, but don't have 26 free pins on your microcontroller? This shift register based keyboard can help! It only takes 3 pins from your Arduino or other MCU and gives you 32 buttons. All the letters of the alphabet, as well as delete, space, enter, shift, punctuation, and clear. We have arduino code ready for you in our step-by-step tutorial. You can buy this as a DIY kit for $19.95 or ready-made (no soldering required) for $29.95. You can use it as a USB keyboard by hooking it up to an Arduino Leonardo . Or use it to get text on an LCD Screen .
If you prefer the more common QWERTY layout for your keyboard, we've got you covered: check out the very similar DIY QWERTY Keyboard .