Play R.C. Pro-Am with Wiimote, real-life style
by James Ransom-Wiley 
{ Dec 21st 2006 at 1:25PM }
Just another device hacked for Wii-control, yes, but this one's a radio-controlled car! An Austrian fellow claims to have modded his toy car to receive tilt inputs from a Wiimote, making for some novel R.C. Pro-Am throwback action. We're not convinced the setup is as "simple" as its creator claims, but the result could inspire some clever retail products.
What's stopping Nintendo from releasing its own Wiimote-controlled car -- or R.O.B. 2.0? Why confine Wii to the telly?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
DannyOB@360insight @ Dec 21st 2006 1:39PM
That is so. freaking. cool.
John @ Dec 21st 2006 1:35PM
Nintendo should have just released the wiimote on its own along with a hackers manual!
There was no need for the wii!
lmao!
:)
pixelator @ Dec 21st 2006 3:11PM
If not fake, the delay/lag makes that utterly useless as a 'real' controller for an R/C vehicle of any kind. Note how long it takes for the car (looks like a Hot Bodies MiniZilla or something like that) to respond to the input from the Wiimote!
Osiris @ Dec 21st 2006 1:54PM
Looks fake to me.
I swear the wiimote has an accelerometer, not a tilt sensor.. Please correct me if i'm wrong.
yincrash @ Dec 21st 2006 1:50PM
the controller is hooked up to the pc which is interpreting the wiimote commands via bluetooth.
what would be impressive would be a bluetooth chip and interpreter built into either the car or the radio controller.
Shane @ Dec 21st 2006 2:27PM
Sorry, Osiris. You're right/wrong. :-) The Wiimote does have an accelerometer. However, remember that gravity provides everything on earth with an acceleration of roughly 9.8 m/s^2 straight down. Therefore, it's relatively easy to detect the tilt based upon this fact.
Joop @ Dec 21st 2006 2:42PM
Osiris,
The mote uses multiple accelerometers as a tilt sensor.
Bionic Commando @ Dec 21st 2006 8:59PM
That a Hot Bodies MiniZilla.I have one it's a wicked little 18th scale truck in its own right. I love the control though. That would be a whole lot o fun!!
Avinash_Tyagi @ Dec 21st 2006 2:39PM
The Wiimote will eventually replace all other control methods
Osiris @ Dec 21st 2006 3:11PM
So doesn't that mean that when tilted for a few seconds the motion will stop being detected shortly after?
So for something like this, the car would stop recieving a 'go' signal after a few seconds because the controller doesn't detect any more movement.
Where as with a tilt sensor the angle of the controller can be sensed all the time rather than sensing a *change* in angle, i.e. with accelerometers.
Am I correct?
Shagi @ Dec 21st 2006 3:20PM
All these adptations for the Wii mote are only going to serve to accelerate the realization among the general population that they are not accurate enough to seriously consider as replacements for other controllers.
Shagi @ Dec 21st 2006 3:33PM
The wii remote is gay
dude
yeah
i am smart
Bipedal @ Dec 21st 2006 3:29PM
@ 8, you are incorrect. As an above poster stated, the accelerometers recognize the pull of gravity. There's always the constant down force of that to check against. It's pretty easy to tell your tilt when you have all 3 axes, and gravity acting on them.
Jarrett @ Dec 21st 2006 4:25PM
"So doesn't that mean that when tilted for a few seconds the motion will stop being detected shortly after?"
No. The accelerometers can detect the direction of gravity even while the controller is completely still.
Rubang @ Dec 21st 2006 8:06PM
#13 is exactly right. That's how Super Monkey Ball works, and that one minigame in Zelda, and whatever new Marble Madness-esque games come out for the Wii.
Burnt Meatloaf @ Dec 22nd 2006 6:01AM
Whatever you do, don't relax your arms or drop the remote! Your RC car will go into instant lemming mode.
This looks cool as a demonstration, but without a point of reference, free-form motion sensors are totally impractical and can have very unpredictable behavior. It won't snap back to a known control state when you let go of it.
Unintended side-effects are why voice recognition isn't used everywhere, either. I remember a demonstration of such software where a member of the audience yelled out a shell command to format the hard drive... and it worked.
pyrosity @ Dec 30th 2006 5:41PM
#16/Burnt Meatlof:
I do not mean to necropost but I could not let this false assumption fly by. The Wii remote does in fact have a point of reference: the earth's gravitational constant of ~9.8 m/s^2, with a continual, straight-down pull.
The Wii remote is much more accurate than people think. It has surprising latency and reports movement very quickly. The increasingly popular trend of using the Wii remote as an input device, however, opens up external bottlenecks to the device's use. Not only is the response time of the remote now dependent on programs like Glove Pi, but it also relies upon the individual scripts that people are using or the means of transfer that people are using.
For instance, this joystiq article's video shows a guy hooking a device up to his RC remote. This implies that the Wii remote may possibly be transferring data to this device and then through the RC controller. Far from an elegant solution, this makes for an entertaining video but ultimately lacks tangible, significant bonuses of Wii remote use.
People are just beginning to discover the potential of the Wii remote.
bluebonics @ Jan 2nd 2007 6:34PM
i wouldn't call 9.8m/s^2 the earth's gravitational constant considering it changes depending on your elevation... that number's just used to keep from having to determine the distance from the earth's center every time you need to include gravity in your earth based calculations. can you say 9.8m/s^2 is the acceleration due to gravity on earth? sure. the only constant you have though is G (roughly 6.67x10^-11). sorry to nitpick... these things just bug me :)