This Novelty Grenade Keyboard Is Perfect for Typing Explosive Comments

We feature a lot of keyboard projects here on Hackster; everything from minimalist mechanical keyboards to productivity-enhancing macro keyboards to specialty keyboards designed for particular software. Those are almost always intended for practical purposes, such as increasing typing speed or improving ergonomic comfort. But keyboards can also be built purely for the joy of creating something unique. Redditor Dapperrogue took that to heart when they built this fantastic novelty grenade-shaped mechanical keyboard.

This keyboard is called the Pineapple, after the nickname for the US military’s Mk II fragmentation grenade that resembles the fruit if you squint really hard. The Mk II grenade was divided up into a grid of segments that were designed to break apart when it exploded. The Pineapple keyboard replicates the look of the Mk II grenade by using key caps for those segments. It has a total of 24 keys, which are arranged in a 4 x 6 grid that wraps around the body of the “grenade.” There is also an additional key hidden underneath the lever that can be activated after the pin has been pulled out.

The body of the keyboard was 3D-printed in several pieces. Those are designed to accept Cherry MX mechanical key switches. The shape of the keyboard makes it impractical to use a custom PCB, so the key switches are all hand-wired. Dapperrogue even took the time to use diodes in the keyboard matrix in order to prevent ghosting. The matrix is monitored by an Arduino Pro Micro board that is running QMK (Quantum Mechanical Keyboard) firmware. QMK is very configurable and normally you’d set it up to simply send the letters of the keys you press or to send shortcut combos. But the Pineapple isn’t meant to be used like a normal keyboard and there aren’t enough keys to type easily. That’s why Dapperrogue set it up to type entire words, such as “Bang!” and “Boom!”, when keys are pressed. It definitely isn’t useful for actually typing, but it is still a lot of fun to see in action.