Johnny Lee’s Wiimote Hack/Whiteboard is Awesome (So Far)
When I first saw this video by Johnny Lee, I thought it was awesome, futuristic-looking, but completely irrelevant to anything I might care about.
Two weeks later I saw it on Ted.com, where Lee describes the outburst in experimentation on the part of teachers and students alike in classrooms across America to expand on his innovation. After that, I basically assumed a personal responsibility to get my wife (who is a teacher) her very own multi-touch whiteboard in her first grade classroom. First watch:
Here are my steps for making this a reality for her, but realize that (1) I’m only about 3/4 of the way through the process and (2) this is in layman’s terms. I don’t program. I know little about hardware, and so if I’m come off as less than schooled on these matters it’s because, well, I am. (Much better support provided in the forums at WiimoteProject.com.)
Step 1: Bluetooth
Make sure you have Bluetooth on your computer/laptop. Seems silly, but if you don’t, then you’ll need to go out and get an external device that enables Bluetooth file sharing.
Step 2: Wiimote
Get a Wiimote. Again, sounds silly but hey, I gave up gaming with the eclipse of the Sega Genesis by faster, better game consoles. I don’t own a Wii, but I got one at BestBuy for $40.00. I’m sure you can get them online for much cheaper, but I was impatient.
Step 3 Sync ‘em Up:
Sync your Wiimote with your computer. This is way more difficult than it sounds. Read the forum above, where I plan to detail the process I went through to do it, but suffice it to say that the Wiimote is not designed to sync with a PC. All other problems stem from there.
Step 4: Get the Pen
Fashion, or purchase, an IR LED pen. There is a great schematic on Johnny Lee’s Web site, but this company, Penteractive sprung up in the wake of all of this and sells them for $8. Again, I’m not good with hardware so I opted for the easy way out.
Step 5: TBC…I’ve yet to get my pen in the mail, or download Lee’s free software, but I’ll leave an update and probably a video response to Lee’s once I do.
Why this is awesome
Lee didn’t invent. He innovated. What’s more, he made it in an open source way, promoted it on YouTube, and stands to provide every classroom in American with the tools to create a reasonably inexpensive interactive whiteboard.
To paraphrase the man himself, his solution is only about 80 percent as good as a commercial one. But it comes at about 1 percent of the cost.
So cool…
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November 25th, 2008 at 8:17 am
[...] I ordered my infrared pen from Penteractive for the wiimote whiteboard hack from Johnny Lee, but I’m still awaiting the pen in the mail. The site was slick, payment via [...]
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:39 am
[...] of a chance to work on this because of the Thanksgiving break, but I wanted to give an update on my most recent project: installing a makeshift smartboard in my wife’s classroom using Johnny Lee’s Wiimote [...]
December 4th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
[...] So I snuck into my wife’s first grade classroom before work today and tinkered for a bit with my Johnny Lee Wiimote setup. [...]
May 19th, 2010 at 7:58 am
I want share with you a free program to be used with interactive whiteboard
http://code.google.com/p/ardesia/
Ardesia enables you to make colored free-hand annotations on your computer screen, record it and share on the network.
This is especially useful when making presentations, to highlight things or point out things of interest.
The tool facilitates the online presentations and demos showing in real time your computer screen to anyone in the network.
Ardesia is XInput-Aware, so if you have a mouse, a graphic tablet, a touch screen, a wiimote whiteboard or a commercial whiteboard; you can draw lines with different strength, select color, erase things and draw arrows.
You can free-hand draw geometrical shapes using the shape recognizer, insert text with the keyboard and highlight screen areas. You can draw upon the desktop or select an image as background.