Paintbrush of light: Day 1

Today we began to talk about the basic concepts and theories of the Wii remote’s sensors, and various other motion, and IR based things. The Wii remote has a multitude of various pieces that affect its performance and how it works. Probably one of the most important is the accelerometer. This senses at which angle the object is in relation to gravity, as well as sensing movement. This pretty much means that it can sense what angle it is at as well as how much it is moved, and how hard it is moved. Another important aspect is the infrared sensor that is at the tip. Contrary to popular belief, the Wii sensor bar does not actually sense, but emits infrared light at two points. The Wii remote senses this light and uses its location to tell where it is in relation to the TV screen (or computer in our case). All of the information gathered from both things is sent wirelessly to the Wii through the Wiimote’s built in Bluetooth. Also we began to experiment about what one can actually do with a Wii remote: from controlling a cursor on a computer to being a part of a surrogate touch whiteboard. In addition to all of this we actually got to look inside of a dissected Wiimote and see all of the pieces. This was quite interesting, because I hadn’t really heard  of any of these things beforehand. Tomorrow we will be beginning with the basics of “Processing”, the programming language we will be using.

(Image found at http://www.wii-bulgaria.com/category/%D0%BE%D0%B1%D1%89%D0%B8/)