wiimote whiteboard

[Dale Ehrhart]

I've been using my wiimote whiteboard for several weeks now and I love it. Here are a couple of powerpoints I put together. The first one is just pictures of my setup while the second one contains observations, etc.

I've been making my own IR pens out of old expo markers-as soon as I have a design I really like I'll document it and post it.

My Wiimote Setups

View more presentations from mystrE. (tags: wiimote wiimotewhiteboard)

Wiimote Whiteboard

View more presentations from mystrE. (tags: wiimote wiimotewhiteboard)

[Ben Rimes]

Dale, how sensitive is your eqiupment? I know I have problems using my Wii in a very bright room (lots of sun), or when I move more than 5 or 6 feet away from my TV screen and the IR sensor. DO you have issues with any extra light sources causing interference, and what other glitches have you had to overcome?

[Dale Ehrhart]

Mine's gone pretty smooth, I have turned the shades because the camera is capable of picking up IR from the sun.

For me the biggest issue are batteries. I would right up front deal with the fact that you need rechargeables or some kind of constant power source.

The software I'm using, Virtualboard, to write on the screen doesn't do well with some of the older machines and I'm using another called E-pointer.

[Ron Houtman]

Dale: I really like your setup. I wish I had a projector that was mounted on the ceiling - I think mine would work better that way.

I too got sick of the EXPO marker kludge-job, batteries dying, and then trying to stuff the battery back in the tube - so I did a couple of things. I re-purposed a cheap aluminum mag-lite-knockoff. I took the lens assembly off and inserted the IR LED into the socket. This works great because there is a tail-cap clicky switch and batteries are a snap to replace.

Also - I bought a bunch of IR keychain lights from Deal Extreme in Hong Kong (10 for $5.15). They say they are UV - but are close enough to the IR spectrum for the Wiimote camera to pick them up just fine.

Thanks for sharing your project with all of us.!

[Steve Dickie]

That's a bit weird. UV is on the other side of the visible spectrum from IR. It's probably that the filter in front of the IR camera on the Wiimote blocks visible light but apparently lets through UV (unless your UV lights are also producing IR)

[Ben Rimes]

Those blue LED keychains look nice! If I'm ever in a classroom without an interactive whiteboard in the future, I'll have to remember this!

Now, if only this tech could work with multiple inputs, because the Wii Remote can sense at least two sources, yes?

[Steve Dickie]

It can track up to four sources. Unfortunately the OS can only handle one mouse at a time.

People are working on using the Wiimote for multi-touch stuff, but I don't think it would be useful in a classroom yet.

[Steve Dickie]

My room isn't particularly bright, but my wiimote is typically 10-15 feet from my screen and it seems to work fine. But, I made sure to get particularly bright LEDs.

[Steve Dickie]

I'll have to give virtual board a look. I've been using LinktivityPresenter when I'm on WinXP, but Virtual Board looks much cooler.

[Dale Ehrhart]

I found another good one called VB Doodle.

[Steve Dickie]

I found it on Download.com, but the official VB Doodle site says it is no longer available for download from them.

[Dale Ehrhart]

Tried VBdoodle with the wiiboard, and it didn't work as well as I hoped-so I'm sticking with virtualboard and E-pointer.

In freehand mode-the software immediately draws a straight line from the previous position of mouse pointer to the position you want to start drawing--------hope that's clear :-b .

[Dale Ehrhart]

Just posted a video on my morning setup. 2 minutes and I'm up and running