Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Wii Hacked To Control Sword-Wielding Robot

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the no-part-of-that-title-is-not-freaking-sweet dept.

ianchaos writes "WiiBot is the pet project of two engineers who apparently have way too much cool hardware and time on their hands. These two guys figure that as long as you have a Kuka KR16 industrial robot to work with, why not see if you can control it with the Wii Remote? The result is a tennis-playing, sword-wielding mechanical arm that simultaneously captures 'weekend of nerdy fun' and 'accident waiting to happen' in a fun two minute video. The website even details the technical aspects of teaching a robot to parry."

2 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Neat Implications by slib · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This could be great for amateur robotics. Instead of painstakingly programming the subtle nuances of motion into a robotic arm/leg/whatever, perform the movement via WiiMote and record the motion. Although I'm sure people have been using similar methods for ages, using a Wii only requires an investment of 250 USD. Plus tax. Plus Zelda (purely for scientific purposes).

  2. Entertainment Application by I'll+Provide+The+War · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They should get together with these guys and start charging:

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-747250219 7006303244