Last weekend I ran a 3 day workshop with students from sciArc on creating custom hardware controllers for maya.  Over the three days the teams developed a device using the Make controller and pressure sensors.

“Some Pig”
This device uses a light sensor embedded in the pig’s nose to choose the forms created from the pressure sensors
You [...]

via  Tech. Review:
“The beetle’s payload consists of an off-the-shelf microprocessor, a radio receiver, and a battery attached to a custom-printed circuit board, along with six electrodes implanted into the animals’ optic lobes and flight muscles. Flight commands are wirelessly sent to the beetle via a radio-frequency transmitter that’s controlled by a nearby laptop. Oscillating electrical [...]

LightMaps – converts lighting data of a surface to an image file using the rendering engine.
-you can animate the lights and generate a series of maps that show the changing conditions
-the maps are named so that they can be used as an animated texture on the surface
download HERE
To use it:
(Assuming you already have the lights [...]

The colourCode system utilizes grayscale maps to control component systems. see the script for details.
download HERE