Microsoft has had its Touch Mouse out for a little while now, and I guess it's feeling like people aren't taking enough advantage of its gestureliciousness. The big M donated an entire colony of touch mice and a handy development API to a student contest and told them to get creative, and here are the results.

These videos how the eight award-winning student projects took advantage of the Microsoft Touch Mouse to do the following:

• Experiment and combine the Touch Mouse with other devices and sensors
• Get creative and write new applications for the Touch Mouse
• Demonstrate "outside the box" thinking using a tool that we use in our daily lives, in unique and different ways

As far as I can tell, they might as well have just said, "hey, take this thing and do something awesome," but you can decide for yourself. Check out the vids:

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1. Wellesley College, "TUI.TAR"

Voted most creative: Finally, a mouse that you can rub all over your body to pretend that it's a guitar. Finally.

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2. Claremont College, "FlipMouse"

Voted most creative: Turn your mouse upside-down to create a tilt-sensing peripheral that doubles as a laser eye-blaster.

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3. Carnegie Mellon University, "Window Manipulation"

Voted most useful: I would absolutely use this window manipulation functionality every single day, and you would too.

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4. Wellesley College, "Where's Bo Peep?"

Voted most useful: This demo proves the potential of a comprehensive understanding of "normal sheep gestures."

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5. IT University of Copenhagen, "Toki D.I.Y. Toolkit"

Voted best implementation: Mouse pajamas and a crazy crazy elephants show users how to take advantage of the capabilities of the Touch Mouse.

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6. UC Berkeley, "The Moussage Mat"

Voted best implementation: If I had to pick one demo to try out for myself, it would absolutely be this one. Remote massage FTW.

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7. MIT Media Lab, "Snail Interface"

Voted the people's choice: Possibly the world's cutest mouse, there's a lot you can do by combining a manipulator with a projection system.

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8. KAIST, "Grip to Identify"

Voted the people's choice: Forget logins and passwords; the way that you grip a mouse can be used to identify you.

UIST Student Innovation Contest, via Microsoft Hardware Blog