USB rotary channel changer
Kentaro Fukuchi originally built this simple controller for an art installation. He needed an easy way for visitors
to switch effects on an EffecTV system. To avoid writing device
drivers he canabilized a cheap game pad. There were 16 available buttons but only 12 were needed. Once the rotary
switch was wired to all of the buttons he could use simple scripting to grab the button press events. You could use
this to control a variety of things and Kentaro gives a couple possible ideas on his site.
(Via hack a day.)