The DIY Wiimote performance computer
After seeing a physics experiment where a Nintendo Wii remote (wiimote) was used as a type of pendulum, an enterprising soul thought to use the Wiimote's 3-axis accelerometers to measure g-forces and even time acceleration runs, effectively creating a DIY g-meter gauge. The Wiimote might not be the most accurate tool for the job, but it's reasonably good and if you happen to have a Wii and a laptop handy. VW Vortex member Klee says that he wrote a script to collect the readings into his laptop and then fiddled with the data to get some plotted graphs to show g's and acceleration curves. Nothing overly complicated is involved really, just a laptop with MS Excel and some basic high school physics formulae.
Not content to just get the down low on his Jetta, he also managed to convince his friend to sample an E46 M3 - purely in the name of science, you understand. The M3 was twice as quick to 60, in case you're wondering. Click over to get the script and more technical information about how to do this for yourself.
Thanks Kevin!
[Source: VW Vortex]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Chubi Chan 9:30PM (7/31/2007)
Just another use for the multi-purpose wii-mote. When nintendo said they were gonna revolutionize gaming, they sure did, with one of the most useful controllers ever...robots, computers, cameras, and now cars...
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Bob-o 8:45PM (7/30/2007)
Or buy a G-Tech/Escort performance meter for half the price of a Wiimote.
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Za 10:52PM (7/30/2007)
I work at a Circuit City and I know our Wiimotes are $40. I would love to find a performance meter for half that price. Could you please direct me to one?
Phil 8:50PM (7/30/2007)
Someone's always gotta be a dick. I think the point of the article is to show unusual applications for the Wii, and give a guy some credit for figuring it out.
Personally I think it's pretty cool. Up until now I didn't know someone had even gotten the wiimote to interface with a PC; I may buy one myself (just the mote) and have a crack at this.
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RWD fan 10:09PM (7/30/2007)
Or someone can be the Apple fanboy and ask why this hasn't been done with a MacBook or MB Pro yet, minus the WiiMote...
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Justin 7:54AM (7/31/2007)
Thankfully we readers all realize Macs are far too limited to do anything productive or inventive. Instead people prefer to work in a closed environment all in the name of battling that evil empire MS.
Say what you will...till I can build my own Mac, screw Apple.
Patrick Austin 10:29AM (7/31/2007)
The accelerometer in my macbook pro will output a high enough range to deal with automotive performance. And you can use seismac (http://www.suitable.com/tools/seismac.html) to access this data in a nice visual form. Sampling rate is great and there's even a handy calibration tool. TONS of fun on an airplane. :)
There's also a command line utility for spitting the data into a text file for later use in excel.
So yeah, it's been done.
Brian 11:05PM (7/30/2007)
I am just dying for someone to pull something like this off for a standard data logging bluetooth GPS (not requireing one of the all in one packages). Where it would also draw track or autocross maps and calculate G-Force by weight, radius and speed, also allowing you to replay multiple runs / laps and do split time analysis based on any starting points. If anyone knows of one that can work with standard nmea logs I would be VERY interested, regardless I do have a Wii and a laptop so I am going to be trying this out as well. VERY NICELY DONE to the author.
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NeoteriX 9:12AM (7/31/2007)
Do those off the shelf consumer GPS devices have the resolution to record and plot 0-60 runs? My GPS devices always lag a little when displaying the speed.
Otis 10:43AM (7/31/2007)
GPS will always lag a little because it receives the sync pulse from the satellites once every second. That won't be high enough resolution for 0-60 times. Unless of course you're driving my old VW Beetle.
CoffeeJones 10:51AM (7/31/2007)
GPS (the system) is accurate to within a few inches or so.
Now if you can get that data out of your Tom Tom or Garmin, as a poor man's telemetry system...
As far as display lag, I don't know. They're first and foremost meant as navigation devices.
AWESOME post. I had no idea the Wiimote is so sensitive, and tying it to Excel to produce charts is the natural thing to do, but it makes all the difference in the world.
Brian 9:12PM (7/31/2007)
Actually the one second refresh wouldn't be a huge problem since after you graph it you would be able to extrapolate the approximate and it would be accurate within .5 seconds and actually probably more unless you are driving sub 5 second 0-60 type vehicles. Anyway the more important information would be the split times over larger distance / times anyway on the similar sections and it would certainly be accurate enough for that even with extrapolating approximate positions. oh well.
l3it3r 5:39PM (7/31/2007)
I think I'll try this tonight
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