How does a computer mouse work?
“Hi, my name is Dave Andrews. Today I’m going to show you how a computer mouse works. I’m first going to explain to you how a ball mouse works, and then I’m going to show you a little bit of how an optical mouse works. Let’s go to our computer. I’m going to pull up this diagram here. This is a basic ball mouse, kind of viewed from a cross section. This little green circle here is the ball that’s in the bottom of your mouse. Now, as you move the mouse across the surface, basically either in the X plain or in the Y plain, right here, rather this would be the X plain and that would be the Y plain. The ball that’s inside of the mouse rotates. Now, attached to that little ball, right here, kind of rubbing up against it, is a tiny little roller that rolls along with the ball, so as this ball rolls, kind of like a gear, it’ll also turn this roller, which will turn this larger roller that has a tiny device that detects that roller as it’s rolling. So since this ball is rolling, this smaller ge
