Wiimote Controlled Coil Gun

I know it seems like a while since I last posted, but since my Christmas enlistment into the Joint Strike Force I’ve been busy winning WWIII for America! Actually it’s not been all video games, I’ve been working on a Django project that I hope to release in a few weeks, and inspired by ServoBeer I managed to find time for some ioBridge hacking.

However, as you can tell my recent militaristic tendencies have probably gotten the better of me!

Weapons of War

As you know from my previous posts I’m interested bringing a higher level of physical awareness and capability to my typical computing environment. Embedded systems are usually used to bypass the need for sophisticated systems, and the ioBridge is great for those situations.

Yet, I’m perfectly comfortable with the idea of using a laptop for a command and control system. It might be a more “tethered” solution then some people would like but I figure in a few years my iPhone will be able to fulfill the role my laptop currently has!

I wanted to move beyond some of the work I’ve been doing with passive sensors and in thinking about some ideas for a more active interfaces I realized that the wiimote certainly fits the description of a powerful controller! There are already enough great wii control hacks out there and some programs let you use the wiimote as a mouse!

But I wanted more then to just replace my mouse, and in most of these cases the flow control goes from the wiimote to a computer, or the wiimote to an arduino with lots of wiring. I wanted to both avoid the electrical requirements as well as extend the influence and “reach” of my wiimote beyond my immediate vicinity.

There are certainly times when you wouldn’t want to put your expensive new Macbook in harm’s way. Whether on the front lines or in the basement laptops are sometimes the wrong systems to dedicate to a task, so ioBridge to the rescue!

The ioBridge already has a number of features which make it idea for “remote” situations and so all I needed create was a mechanism to coordinate wiimote events sent to my computer with ioBridge events sent to the module. Luckily the team at ioBridge has created just such an API!

In this setup I use a python script and MoteDaemeon to bring the events into my laptop’s domain. Of course I could script up a number of local events but what I wanted to do was act on that data and sending commands to an ioBridge module.

So I build a website which monitors the position from one axis of the wiimote and extrapolates that position to a servo output on a remote ioBridge module (which happens to be in my office, but doesn’t have to be). I’m also tracking some of the button inputs and can expand easilly to include other axes as well!

Now I just needed something fun to control on the other end! I happened to have an office golf putter lying around and that uses an electromagnetic induction coil to generate the force needed for the ball return when you sink a putt. If you take that apart and replace the metal cylinder with something a tad bit smaller then you’re left with a coil gun capable of some pretty powerful shooting!

I’m not sure it’s up to DoD standards yet but remember the only required link between the wiimote and the ioBridge module is the Internet so if you can sneak one of these into your friend’s house, or a colleagues’ office, then you could be anywhere on the planet with Internet access and stick it to them!

How’s that for “Can you hear me now?”. Check out the video of it in action on YouTube or Vimeo!