wiimote white board

over the summer break we were left to our own devices, without tv maybe even without internet. i personally dont watch tv any more unless taking a break from googling. one of the many, many days i spent in front of google i found my self at a youtube page that seemed to show that i could draw on my moniter and my projecter for £1500 punds less (pretty much free) as long as i had a wiimote and a bluetooth adapter handy. luckyly i did, well my nefew did, i proceded to follow the instructions that on first glance looked quite complex but turned out to be just two bits of software and a dash of luck (windows isnt exactly a dead sert). the idea based itself upon the wiimote being a sensor for a moving infrared led that i would fashion into a beautiful looking pen. the wiimote infact is just a very cheap high quality infra red camra. it works on a reasonably high resolution compared to standard, lets say, web cams. after i completed my dodgy pen and positioned the wiimote all that was left was to use the software given to calibrate the wiimote to the irpen. it gladly worked to my amazment, first time. its fairly limited as there is no preasure sensitivity and if you put yourself in the way of the wii sensor the pen ceases to funcion but all in all it was a sucess. you might think that i would stop there but after a few web searches to find the seed site where all this came from, i descovered that there are two more projects that were relitavly simple but worked off the same basic principle. one being virtual reality. ir leds attatched to said persons head, as he/she moves so do the pictures on screan thus creating the effect of a window into your computer. this project i have also completed but the software isnt as great as i imagined or maybe it needs a little more work on my end as the picture does not seem to fake perspective as well as the demonstration suggests. the third and final project that interests me the most is ir gloves that allow me to control up to four points with four fingers from a distance. although people have developed on this design to make a fully working touch screen, it will take a hefty amount of time money and effort to get that finished so im going to put it on standby until i have the time.