This pencil has two modes: 1. write, 2. work as a wireless mouse.

Using this mouse someone could copy the examination question for a cooperating partner outside the door, and the partner could then help solving the problem by translating it back to the person where the examination takes place...

Copying in examinations is a bad idea, but that would work, and this kind of pen could have many other uses.
-- Inyuki, Jan 09 2010

Most fortuitous. Self-Writing_20Pen
ala [cowtamer] [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jan 11 2010]

So, sort of like a stylus, but with the sensor in the stylus rather than in a trackpad, a wireless link and an ability to write? Yes, that would be neat.

You might *just* be able to do this optically, somewhat like an optical mouse, with fibreoptics emerging near the pencil point (or, better, pen nib). Alternatively, accelerometers in the body of the pen might work.

But this wouldn't work as an exam cheating tool - you could transmit from the exam room, but how do you get the information back?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 10 2010


//how do you get the information back// small lead weights within the pencil body, shifted by servo motors. The limp-wristed user draws the pencil smoothly from left to right, and the moving weights wiggle it enough to produce lettering.
-- pocmloc, Jan 10 2010


Cunning.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 10 2010


//how do you get the information back?// pocm's lead weight system, combined with a segway-like gyroscopic balance, and the cheater's pen can fill in the test answers by itself
-- swimswim, Jan 10 2010


//how do you get the information back?//

Dictate via radio is an easy way.
-- Inyuki, Jan 10 2010


Pretty sure you need a fixed angle of reflectance. Why not just have a scanner pen?
-- daseva, Jan 11 2010


If the ink is clear until it comes into contact with air, then we could optically track the rotation of the pen's ball-point, from inside the pen.

Of course, this wouldn't detect movements that occur when the pen isn't in contact with the paper, so it would have to be combined with MB's accelerometers in the body of the pen.
-- goldbb, Jan 11 2010



random, halfbakery