Special thanks to Fred Higton for all his help and partaking in the projects development.

Video courtesy of BBC East Midlands Today.

The following details some of the primary features that make the IRO-USB-R4 aka The Scorpion stand out for Wiimote IR Tracking development.

1. Customizable setups facilitating up to 4 IR sources. The limitation of 4 points reflects only the standard visible points detectable via a standard Wiimote.
2. IR sources/pendants are interchangeable allowing for numerous variants to be attached to the power source: This is great for PDS development and facilitating a users individual anthropometric requirements. This is also great if for some reason an LED fails.
3. Super fast 100mah/280mah USB Rechargeable power source.
4. Recharge indicator LED.
5. Ambidextrous pendant design. Can be used equally by left or right handed individuals.
6. Compact lightweight fingertip mountings, especially designed to  facilitate a users individual anthropometric requirements.
7. Compact lightweight body mounting, especialy designed to  facilitate a users individual anthropometric requirements.
8. Pendant IR Source operational control (on/off switch).
9. Its Lightweight and compact: Just as it says on the tin.
10. Solid and robust performance for up to 1hour 40min of constant usage. It will last longer but this is the optimal usage period.

With the completion of this final iteration, the Wii Glove system has now been submitted for clinical trialing.

More information will be made available shortly.

A direct link to the article can be found here.

The article details a nice photo of Andy demonstrating one of the rechargeable glove prototypes with the CLAHRC project space race game.

The article also provides a little information about the Interactive Technologies and Games: Education, Health and Disability conferance at which the system was featured.

1. wiici_Ca – Custom User Applications (for use with WiiciClientLib… coming soon)
2. wiici_Mm – The Wiici Mini Mapper
3. wiici_GP – The Wiici GOET Project Application

WiiciServerLib 1.1 is now available for download here. For more information check out the WiiciServerLib page here.

1. wiici_Ca – Custom User Applications (for use with WiiciClientLib… coming soon)
2. wiici_Mm – The Wiici Mini Mapper
3. wiici_GP – The Wiici GOET Project Application

WiiciServerLib 1.1 is now available for download here. For more information check out the WiiciServerLib page here.

WiiciWebCamLib basically converts a video stream from a Web Cam and converts it in to an XNA Texture2D object which can then be rendered via SpriteBatch or as a 3D texture.

This one is a bit too off topic to make it officially into the ranks of Wiici Suite member but I thought I’d include it here just in case people find it useful.

With this test Lib out of the way, I’m now going to move onto more of an openCV implementation in preparation for November, but that’s for another site

For more information and to download check out the WiiciWebCamLib page here.

All in all I quite like the concepts and believe that they would be fairly easy to implement at a home-brew level. However I would personally drop Hitt (far too bulky and already facilitated) and just focus on Kiix but give it more of a pedometer feel.

For more information and source, check out Michael’s site here.

Although collapsible it seems that it just can’t handle the constant trips to and from work. With this in mind I decided its time to build a new one. After all I’m beginning to find it difficult to get is square.

Experience has dictated that the straws just are not robust enough, so this time around I have adopted for a dowel based solution. So without further ado here is my new calibration cube:

The corner blocks were created via a quick 3D print, but can easily be replicated by other means. However, just in case you have a access to such a equipment or a rep-rap, etc I have included the .stl here if you wish to duplicate my effort.

As you can see from the above image, the design is very simple. Please note however that the holes are provided as pilots. Personally I used a pillar drill to create a 4mm diameter (same as dowel) hole at a depth of about 5mm.

Here we have a close up image for your ref:

When put together the internal diameter of each side (corner to corner) measures in at 26cm. This is the same as the original cube and reflects my personal setup (desired distance from monitor etc).

Please note this does not mean you are limited to a 26*26*26 operational area.

All in all I’m very happy with the result and think it fits the bill perfectly

A few years back before the age of Wii, my research involved the development of a couple joystick prototypes under the banner of an EPSRC funded project. A render of the final design iteration, can be seen above.

Although we managed to knock up a few real world implementations for artifact testing, the overall desired (aesthetics etc) PDS was never truly implemented. To this day I still think this is a shame as the artifact tests proved to be really encouraging.

By updating some of the original PDS  features (via lessons learned) and by utilizing the peripheral technology’s of the Wiimote and the accompanying software solutions of Wiici. I believe the original design can be further enhanced enormously.

After about an hour I managed  to recreate the original PDS base in Autodesk’s Inventor.

The model was then exported to .stl format so that it could be printed out. After about a 3 hour print time per side the  we have the following. As you can see things are already beginning to look like the original PDS image:

With the bulk of the base out of the way I began to work on developing the headstock. As part of the update I decided that I wanted to give the new solution a Wii feel.

With this in mind I decided to develop the headstock utilizing similar styling to a  nunchuck. The following photo is a quick mock up detailing the overall desired effect:

That’s about it for current progress. I hope you agree that so far things are looking good. The idea at this stage is to create 2 prototypes. One strongly based on the original PDS which will allow me to focus on the development of the overall internals etc and one too detail all the functional/ergonomical lessons learned over the period of research. The two can then be compared and evaluated.

Come back soon for more updates.

Admins Final Thoughts:

Why bother with Joysticks at all you may ask? We all use control pads and “Wonder Wands” now.! Well that’s great for you generics out there, however,  there are some, who due to varying factors, both cognitive and physical, find it very difficult to interface via the control pad paradigm.