Together with Jeff Snyder from snyderphonics, we are excited to release a sketch on how to use the Cypress PSoC 4 CY8CKIT-049 Prototyping Kit as a capacitive sensing element that forwards the measured data via serial connection.
The PSoC4 is a low-cost (about 5 EUR for the dev-kit!) yet powerful and programmable microcontroller with integrated, re-programmable analogue cirquitry, developed especially for capacitive sensing demands.
Unfortunately, the whole process requires a windows computer but once it is set up, it is fairly easy to use. You may also install the whole software in a virtual machine on linux or OSX. Wine is unfortunately not supported.
The code is hosted on github.