Thursday, December 30, 2010

How To Make Your Own Smartboard With A Wii Remote

 
 

Sent to you by Sparkie via Google Reader:

 
 

via MakeUseOf.com by Angela Alcorn on 12/28/10

wii smartboardIf you're a teacher or you regularly make presentations for work, you've probably heard about smartboards and wondered vaguely if they would be useful for your presentations. In short, they probably would as they tend to engage the audience well, allowing them to really follow what you're trying to teach them.

Now if you just don't have the budget for a full-price smartboard, here's something you will love: it's a neat hack to use a Wii remote (Wiimote) and an infrared pen as a smartboard. Using a few cheap tools you might already have alongside some free software, you have the recipe for a smartboard. This is a fine hour for open source and hacking popular gadgets!

Why Use A Smartboard?

Backing up a bit in case you're not completely familiar with smartboards, essentially a smartboard is when your computer screen is projected onto a white screen and you can manipulate this projection as if it's a giant touch-screen.

Now, here's a quick run-down of the sorts of things you can do with a smartboard:

  • Use interactive websites in demonstrations.
  • Highlighting text while discussing it.
  • Draw to help explain complex processes.
  • Record your entire lecture for replay later.
  • Play games as a group.
  • Create visualisations of data while obtaining the data.
  • Check out this presentation for more ideas.

Basics Of A Wiimote Smartboard

Johnny Chung Lee is the designer of the Wiimote Smartboard and the full instructions and YouTube demo are available on his website. Essentially, the Wiimote Smartboard works like this: the Wii remote can track up to four infrared signals. So if you project your computer screen onto a white screen (or just use a large LCD monitor) and point your Wii remote in the same direction, you can interact with your computer using up to four infrared pens.

What You Need

You will need:

  • Wii Remote (cheap imitations don't usually work as well).
  • A reliable way of mounting your Wii remote and holding it still.
  • Infrared pen (check compatibility with your chosen software before buying – or, build your own IR pen if you're keen).
  • Computer with Bluetooth (to connect to Wii Remote).
  • Large monitor or projector and white screen (anything to make it bigger).
  • Software to make it work (there's a few choices – read on).

Hints

Before you run into trouble, take this advice:

  • If you're using a monitor, look for an infrared pen which doesn't require you to press down in order to activate. Look for a switch on the side of the pen as well as a click button.
  • Two Wii remotes work better than one (in case the signal gets blocked by you standing in the way).
  • Try the Wiimote Project forum for help.
  • If you want extra guidance and tips, try the SmoothBoard Wiki.
  • Calibration can be tricky – ensure your devices will work with your software before you buy, then check the forum if you need specific help.

wii smartboard

Software Options

There are free and paid software options available:

How To Make Your Wii-Remote Smartboard

  • Install whichever version of the Wii-remote smartboard software you've chosen. Then set up your computer with your projector or large monitor as you wish.
  • To connect your Wii remote to your computer, turn on Bluetooth for the computer, then press the 1 and 2 buttons on the Wii remote to pair the devices.
  • Place the Wii remote so that it's facing the board, not less than 45 degrees angle from the board. Try to make it so that you won't accidentally block the line between the Wii remote and your infrared pen with your body.
  • Run the software and ensure you calibrate your infrared pen as per the instructions. From now on, you should be able to use the pen as if it's a mouse — clicking and dragging objects, drawing or highlighting text.

Love Hacking?

If you're a bit of a DIY hacker, then you might also love these posts:

Let us know how you use your smartboard (Wii-remote variety or purpose-built). Do you use it in a classroom or for work? What works well? Let us know in the comments!

Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don't forget to share our articles with others! It's really important to us.

 

 

Similar MakeUseOf Articles


 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:

Goggies R Our Friends: Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland

 
 

Sent to you by Sparkie via Google Reader:

 
 

 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Father Creates iPad App to Help Disabled Son ‘Speak’

 
 

Sent to you by Sparkie via Google Reader:

 
 

via Daring Fireball by John Gruber on 12/27/10

Tom Breen reports:

Victor has a rare genetic disorder that delays development of a number of skills, including speech. To help him and others with disabilities, his father, Paul, and some of his students at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem have created an application for the iPhone and iPad that turns their touch screens into communications tools.


 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:

Monday, December 27, 2010

It's like Burning Man, but with ice, and in China

 
 

Sent to you by Sparkie via Google Reader:

 
 

via Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin on 12/27/10

RTXW0D9(2).jpg

Above and below: tourists look at ice sculptures during a light testing prior to the Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival in Harbin, Heilongjiang province. The bricks look like pixels, don't they? The event opens on January 5, 2011, according to local media. Photographs taken December 25, 2010.

More images below!

RTXVYXE.jpg (REUTERS/Sheng Li)

RTXW0DC.jpg


RTXVYXG.jpg




 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Amateur astrophotographery animation of Jupiter

 
 

Sent to you by Sparkie via Google Reader:

 
 

via MAKE Magazine by Gareth Branwyn on 12/24/10

Our resident space geek, Rachel Hobson, turned us on to this amazing amateur video, posted on the Bad Astronomy blog, of animated photos of Jupiter. In the blog post, Phil Plait writes:

That is just about the finest imagery of Jupiter from the ground I have ever seen! Look at the detail: the Great Red Spot, the string of brownish storms just above and trailing behind it, the white ovals, the whorls and streamers of air separating the horizontal banding. It's breathtaking. And there's this overwhelming three-dimensionality to it, a powerful sense that this is a giant planet. It's simply stunning.


To get this phenomenal animation, Damian used a trick well-known among astrophotographers now, too: video cameras take very short exposures, which essentially freezes out the microturbulence in the Earth's air, preserving the finest detail that is otherwise smeared out. By looking at individual still frames you can pick the ones that are the best, then string them together to make a video like the one above.

[Thanks, Rach!]

Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity

Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Science | Digg this!

 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:

Lunar Eclipse

 
 

Sent to you by Sparkie via Google Reader:

 
 

via Boing Boing by Mike Brown on 12/20/10

Lunar-eclipse-2004.jpg (images via Wikipedia)

Macrobius,_lunar_eclipse.jpg For the past two weeks, as we've followed the moon nearly halfway around the sky, I've talked about the relative positions of the earth and the moon and the sun using a simple system clock-based system to point to everything. As we've been doing it, we're looking down from above the north pole of the earth, which you can draw as a clock face.

The sun is off in the distance in the 6 o'clock position. Almost two weeks ago, when we first saw the little sliver of a moon and the remainder of the disk full of earthshine, the moon was around the 5 o'clock position. When it flew past Jupiter almost a week ago it had moved up to 3 o'clock, and now, as it is coming around to full, it is nearly to 12 o'clock.

Often when you present this way of looking at positions of the sun and the earth and the moon to kids for the first time (and it work even better if you use a lamp for the sun, your head for the earth, and a Styrofoam ball for the moon), you will be asked "but wait, how come we can ever see the full moon?"

It's true that in this simple view every time the moon moves to the 12 o'clock position it should fall into the earth's shadow and disappear. We should never see a full moon. The only reason we do is because the orbit of the moon is tilted by just a little bit, so most of the time when the moon reaches the 12 o'clock position it is a little above or a little below the long shadow of the earth.

That's the same reason, of course, that we don't get eclipses of the sun every time the moon is at the 6 o'clock position. It's too bad, really, because if eclipses of the sun actually happened every month maybe I would finally get a chance to see one. Which I still haven't. Which makes me bitter.

Every once in a while, though, the sun, earth, and moon do line up just right, and at the precise moment when the moon should be completely full, it instead really does disappear into a lunar eclipse.

One of those times when this happens is tonight. Starting at 9:30pm here in southern California (where, incidentally, we received record rainfall yesterday and the probability of clear skies for tonight hovers in the low zeros), or 5:30am GMT, the moon first touches the earth's shadow. I like to think of it from the perspective of someone on the moon watching. First the limb of the earth touches the sun, then slowly the earth slides across, making the lunar landscape darker and darker, until finally the entire sun is extinguished and it is almost as dark as a frigid lunar nighttime.

The full eclipse starts at 11:41pm PST for me, when I will be looking up at the clouds in wonder, or 7:41am GMT, and lasts a little longer than an hour before the moon slowly reappears.

If you're lucky enough to have clear skies and be awake for that hour of total eclipse, one of the most interesting things that you will notice is that the moon doesn't actually disappear, but instead can turn a dim spooky red. What is going on? Let's think about standing on the surface of the moon again. From the moon's perspective, the earth is new - totally unilluminated - and though you could see some of the brighter lights of cities and fishing fleets it is not enough to light your landscape. But with the sun directly behind the earth, all parts of the earth's atmosphere would glow with a 360 degree ring of sunset, so all around you would not be night, but an eerie twilight.

It's a sight no one has ever seen. No pictures exist anywhere of the view from the moon of the earth, with its full atmosphere aglow, yet I still know that it must be one of the most wondrous sights in the solar system. I wish I could be up there on the moon tonight staring back towards home, but I'll just have to imagine - as you should too - that moment, standing on the edge of some crater, looking out across the desolate lunar landscape.

You're looking up at the earth but you can't see too much yet other than the glare from the quickly shrinking sliver of sun. Suddenly the entire sun is covered, your eyes adjust and you look up to see the red glow all the way around, the tiny outer cover of earth that makes it home.

You watch for an hour as the glow changes with the clouds and with the slow rotation of the earth until suddenly a little sliver of sun appears from the western side of the earth and you're quickly blinded again as lunar day time slowly reappears across your landscape, lighting your footprints in the dust showing you the way to begin the long walk home.




 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:

Lighthouse frozen in ice

 
 

Sent to you by Sparkie via Google Reader:

 
 

via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz on 12/20/10

Lighthouseee
Above is a lighthouse in Cleveland, Ohio. The spray from Lake Erie froze layer by layer until the structure was encased in ice. WKYC.com has a gallery of photos by George Payamgis. "Frozen Cleveland lighthouse draws visitors"


 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)