I’m very interested in Wiimote projects for the Mac for two reasons. One is that the guy who came up with the idea (Johnny Lee) is an alumnus of my university. I’m so into his work that I even went to his thesis defense. The other is that my mom is a sixth grade teacher, and I helped her convince the technology department at my old middle school to buy two Wiimotes for her to use with the projector and iMac in her classroom.
Setting up the Wiimotes with the whiteboard is a snap, especially with the Wiimote Whiteboard program for the Mac. The only problems we’ve had are making the IR light pen and finding something simple for the kids to do.
In a quick demonstration last week, using a DVD player remote control since the IR light pen I made ran out of batteries, I set the kids up drawing in Appleworks. This was fun, and the ENTIRE class immediately jumped out of their seats and lined up at the chance to draw themselves. This was certainly one of the most excited and engaged audiences I’ve ever presented to.
Even so, Appleworks isn’t a really great program to be using for this type of thing. It’s obviously not designed for a pen interface, and it can’t use the Wiimote’s multitouch capabilities. This is why I was so excited to see Adrien Mondot’s effort to hook up eMotion to the Wiimote set up:
eMotion+Wiimote in IR mode from Adrien Mondot on Vimeo via [Hack A Day]
The video shows all kinds of wonders that sixth graders would lose their minds over. Drawing is cool enough, but I think we’d have to resuscitate some of them once we got them moving letters around, using multiple pens, affecting particles and giving them 3D graphics.
I’m going to try to make some little kids pass out after winter break. Have you tried the Wiimote whiteboard project?
