Creating a WiiMote interactive white board at my school for under $50.
Posted by David Wees on Nov 11, 2009
So someone sent me a link to the video below and I decided to act upon it. I thought I would link my resources I find for this project here, and keep you all up to date on how it is working.
The immediate attraction for this project was the idea of being able to create an interactive white board for what looks like close to $50. Our school currently has three Smartboards at the Upper school and three Smartboards at the lower school and three times that many classrooms at each building. This means that only 1 out 3 lessons is taught using a Smartboard at best, and teachers tend not to use the Smartboards. Part of the problem here is the Smartboard technology is not immediately obvious how to use, and part of it is because of training, but access to a Smartboard is a big problem for most teachers.
First I had to do some research into the controllers themselves which are necessary, which are basically a Nintendo WiiMote and a Bluetooth receiver on your laptop. According to Amazon the WiiMote costs about $35 and the Bluetooth receiver costs about $4. You might also want a cheap tripod to mount the Wiimote onto, that should cost another $15 or so and is useful but optional (my tripod cost me $9) since in the video below you can see Johnny mounts the Wiimote directly on top of the LCD projector. You also need an LED pen, which you can apparently build for about $5 or purchase online. Total cost so far is $44 or if you are lucky and find a cheap tripod (like I did), $53.
As for turning the Wiimote into an interactive white board, Johnny Lee (the inventor of this process) has instructions up on his website. He has also created a community forum where you can post questions, and if it is like most online communities I know, get answers to your questions.
Johnny Lee has also presented at TED, so you know there are some very smart people who love (and have tested) his idea. What I really love is the demonstration of the VR system he has designed using pretty much the same hardware with some different software.
Here's a good video showing a pressure sensitive pen, which will make writing much easier. The brand name of the pen casing is called Tide-to-go pressure tip pen. Yes, as in Tide the laundry detergent company.
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Comments
Whiteboard
It's interesting that you are creating this whiteboard! It really does work well as long as you have a strong surface to write on, like a smooth wall or cabinets, or a regular large dry erase board. I made mine last year (first year of teaching) and used it with my 3rd graders. In the process of creating it, I noticed that is was very touchy when calibrating and the slightest touch would set it off and you would have to recalibrate it. I used some different software and here is the list:
-smoothboard app (a bit more stable than the wiiwhiteboard app)
-wiiwhiteboard app (created by johnny lee)
-also I used a whiteboard program that I can't remember the name (i'm sure there are a ton more now, like etherpad or even a sketching program like odosketch)
Make sure that when you use the dongle that you have that plugged in first and then try to connect the wiimote. That was the trickiest part and the most unstable in setting up the board. I haven't tried to install the whiteboard this year, since I have moved classes and don't have the area to create the whiteboard. Let me know if you have any other questions, it's a fun little project (as long as it works).
Andrew
also i used a company called penteractive for pens (they are created by a teacher in kentucky I believe).
http://penteractive.us/
Yeah I found the website for the pens. It's http://penteractive.us/ and they charge $8 a pen. I suppose that is reasonable given that they are choosing materials which they know will work with the Wiimote white board. The materials for the pens cost under $2 so I hope shipping is cheap! Can't see that it is worth my time buying the individual materials for each pen and assembling them. I'll go with this company.
I'm also glad to hear that the alternate Smart board software is good. It's only $29.99 which is cheap, but no idea if it works or not. If I can get this up and running and it's smooth, I'll be piloting these with teachers at school so good to use stuff which is idiot proof.
I just found out that company
I just found out that company wants to charge $26 for shipping for the two pens and I'm not willing to spend a total of $42 for two pens which I could make for $2. Looks like I'm constructing them myself. Yech.
Congratulations on your way to teach
Mr. Wees
we are two young students in mathematics education in the country of Chile. we work for our English II course
Along with health, we want to congratulate you on your blogs, which have used the mathematics and education in an innovative way. to call us a lot of attention MATHBLOG your blog, working interactively mathematics, which makes students to demonstrate some interest to what are the use and learning of numbers.
We also very interested in the personal blog as it encompasses not only mathematics but also the tremendous work involves teaching, as there are various factors affecting the cognitive process.
You would like to ask you a question regarding matblog, how games teach from trigonometry?
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