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Using Hacked Wiimotes As Scientific Sensors

Posted by samzenpus on from the graduated-joystick dept.

garg0yle writes "Scientists are repurposing Wiimotes as scientific sensors to help measure wind speed or evaporation from lakes, among other things. At about $40 per unit, the controller is much cheaper than specialized sensors. The scientists are still considering how to add storage and extend the battery life."

11 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Oh Science. by Interoperable · · Score: 4, Insightful

    “There are probably better ways to measure wind, but it was a day well-spent,” Hut said. “I really felt the need to solder something.”

    A day well-spent indeed! There's nothing like spending a day to save a few dollars by not having to buy a specialized sensor. Sounds like my Master's research; why buy good equipment when grad students can spend ages building a poor imitation of it? Still, those days are usually the most fun part of "science" and certainly afford excellent learning opportunities.

    --
    So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
    1. Re:Oh Science. by Shakrai · · Score: 4, Funny

      There's nothing like spending a day to save a few dollars by not having to buy a specialized sensor.

      They won't be saving any money when they get hit with the DMCA lawsuit ;)

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
  2. It's not about how much it costs to make by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...this equipment can run $500 or more...

    The scientific equipment is more expensive because laboratories are willing to pay more, and have the money. Gamers aren't willing to pay $500 for a controller.

    Look here: Digikey has 18000 pressure sensors available. I picked one at random, and it can measure pressure up to 115 psi, which is about 60 meters deep in water. It only costs $12. I could make you the serial port/USB interface for like 20 bucks.

    Scientists only pay that much because they are willing to pay that much.

    1. Re:It's not about how much it costs to make by Psaakyrn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      However, you're underestimating the cost of time. Mass production decreases both the cost and time of making a specific product (or combination of products).

    2. Re:It's not about how much it costs to make by Mr.+Freeman · · Score: 4, Informative

      That, and the fact that a lot of scientific instruments are of the quality needed to do science. Sure, your bathroom scale is $20, but that won't do you any good when you need to measure masses on the order of one tenth of one milligram. Even a 3-place "precision" balance for $200 won't cut it for a lot of work. You need a 4-place analytical balance, which will run you about $4k.

      Cheap sensors work great for things like wind speed and the water level of a lake because any small variation in these readings means absolutely nothing.

      Now, as for the wiimote being an amazing tool, it's really not. It's being touted as such by scientists who apparently aren't actually examining how this thing works.

      The case in the article mentioned using it to measure water level by using the IR camera on the sensor to record an IR beacon on a floaty thing in the water. You can do the same thing with a cheap ass digital camera and the same laptop that reads the data from the wiimote for about $10-15. They also mention putting wiimotes on a collapsing building to gather data. This is because the wiimote contains a chap accelerometer which you can actually buy on sparkfun.com for much cheaper than an entire wiimote.

      Apparently these guys have never heard of embedded devices. The arduino, PIC microcontrollers, and NI DAQ devices have been around for years and would perfectly suit the purpose of data collection. As I'm attending an engineering university currently I've noticed something. Engineers seem to be much more up to date and logical about what's PRACTICAL. Sure, you could use a wiimote, but you could get an arduino, a flash drive, and some cheap accelerometers for about $50 and you could use it to collect AND PROCESS five times the amount of data and use it on orders of magnitude more applications.

      --
      -1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
    3. Re:It's not about how much it costs to make by gmhowell · · Score: 5, Funny

      However, the cost of a grad student per hour is asymptotic at $0.

      --
      Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
    4. Re:It's not about how much it costs to make by idolcrash · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This is because, for the most part, scientists are focused on their research subject and their area of expertise, cost reduction, not so much. You can't really expect everyone everywhere (especially outside of engineering) to know the intricacies of arduinos, NI DAQs, etc. as well as how to best implement them. That's for the engineers, really, and having and extra engineer on the research team most likely costs more than the savings they could help with...plus I'm not sure how many, say electrical engineers, would be interested in that kind of work anyways.

  3. Other Sensor Platforms by Tisha_AH · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think the pricing of scientific instrumentation is based largely upon the limited number of devices produced. The folks who make sensors really do not care too much about the price and are looking at recovering their development, manufacturing and marketing costs off of very small sales quantities.

    A case in point; I work with AMI (SmartGrid) systems for measuring water and electricity consumption. These devices have a surprising level of sophistication, very long battery lives (10-20 years off of a Li-Ion battery) and can store a data-point every fifteen minutes and report it back across a radio network. I "know" the manufacturing costs are down in the $30-60 range for each device. The manufacturers are all anxious to get customers (utilities) to spend their millions on projects to put SmartGrid technologies into cities so the more you buy, the cheaper they get. The data is frequently coming from "absolute encoders" on water meters and less frequently, from pulse encoders that generate a certain number of pulses per 1000's of gallons (the device counts them up, multiplies them by a K factor and gives you a corrected value for gallons of water consumed).

    The Nintendo Wi is a good example. How many millions of the Wi devices are made? If they were $250 each there would not be many consumers buying them so they mass-produce and keep the prices low. You see the same effect when you hear about banks of PlayStation 3's being used in clusters for supercomputing.

    --
    Tisha Hayes
    1. Re:Other Sensor Platforms by tlhIngan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      And the flipside happens too - scientific instruments are used for cooking. In this case, it's for cooking delicate foods using a thermal immersion circulator to cook sous-vide.

      http://gizmodo.com/5346014/what-is-this

      It's used because it's the best way to do precision temperature control.

  4. Funny coincidence by idolcrash · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The lab I work in uses hacked Wiimotes to study visual pecerption in autism, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's. They can be programmed with C#, which our PI and another undergrad learned to work with the Wiimotes...the ease of use and the hackability are pretty good selling points besides the price.

  5. Extend the battery life by Craig+Davison · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's a few Wii battery packs out there that allow the controller to be powered over USB with a standard A to mini-B cable. Here's one:
    http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.4978
    Of course, if you drain the battery pack faster than you can recharge it, you might have a problem.

    --
    Hands in my pocket