Wii Remote Measurements

[klee]

[Update:] Thanks Lidberg for hosting!!

I got this idea after seeing some physics class use the wiimote in some kinda pendulum experiment.

Why not use the wiimote's built in 3-axis accelerometers to measue g-forces, acceleration and even calculate my own 0-60mph times!

So I did. I wrote a script to dump all the g-force readings from the wiimote to a comma separated value file, then did some post processing in MS Excel, and voila, I can see every bump, every curve, my acceleration and braking, and even calculated my current speed using high school physics (v=a*t)

I even convinced my coworker to take me out in his E46 M3 to measure his SMG's performance

I admit, it's not super accurate since the wiimote spits out G readings rounded to two decimal places. It also provides other acceleration readings in finer granularity, but I couldn't figure out what metric it was recording in. I used Gs since I knew it was just the acceleration of gravity (9.8 m/s/s).

Here's a copy of the script that dumps everything out to output.txt
All you need is Glovepie v0.29, a Bluetooth dongle with BlueSoleil, the Human Interface Device drivers, and a standalone wii remote!
All the basic instructions on how to get your wii remote connected to your PC can be found here:
http://www.wiili.org/GlovePIE

If anybody wants my excel spreadsheet with the formulas and graphs, you can find it here:
http://www.christiancarlson.com/klee/sample_wiimote_speed_calcs.xls

//Glovepie v0.29 script

var.t=time*86400

//Writes motion data to file
OutputToFile(RemoveUnits(var.t)+","+Wiimote.gx + ", " + Wiimote.gy + ", " + Wiimote.gz)

debug = var.t+', '+wiimote.gx+', '+wiimote.gy+', '+wiimote.gz

The Wiimote, nice n snug so it doesn't jostle around:

My 2.Slow's 0-60 time. 13.5s baby!!

My friend's E46 M3 SMG's 0-60 time

General Accelerometer readings:
When the blue line dips down, I'm making a left turn.
When it jumps up, I'm making a right turn.
When the Yellow line goes up, I'm accelerating.
when it dips down, I'm braking.

pic of my car for kicks:

Modified by klee at 5:26 PM 7-28-2007

Modified by klee at 4:32 PM 8-3-2007


Modified by klee at 4:33 PM 8-3-2007

[ClockworkChad]

i think you need to find local bar where you are comfortable to in your free time, or a girlfreind. maybe both. good work otherwise

[ozuMa]

Wow, awesome job dude. All I need is a wii <_<

[Ubergolf2003]

That is F*****G awesome

[JB_1152]

That's very impressive!

[xLLOYDESSEUSx]

that's pretty intersting stuff right there

[SanDiegoR1Rider]

Im really impressed.
Also, really disturbed.
I feel pity for you and your lack of a social life.
I do wish I had a Wii though.

[Malant]

Thats pretty dope

[TMH]

genius! you make me feel dumb

[They_Call_Me_Bob]

Badass, you should submit this to gizmodo.com, bet they will feature it on their blog.

They love all the hacks people are coming up with for the Wii.

Again, nice work.

[ZerosHeroes]

Wow you are fancy. Hats off to that work.

[dzlnitro]

so am i reading correctly that a e46 m3 did 0-60 in about 7 seconds, that needs some fine tuning other than that, keep up the good work

[bluebora20v]

Great job. Does the Wii remote have RAM or something that you can pull the data from or is it real time data acquisition?

[RupertX]

damn...thats pretty slick. nintendo rules. they should make a nintendo edition vw.
screw the dumb guitar. haha

[klee]

Quote, originally posted by bluebora20v »

Great job. Does the Wii remote have RAM or something that you can pull the data from or is it real time data acquisition?

yeah, it feeds the values to the PC in real time.

it didn't take long and I figured there'd be someone else out there who might benefit from the work. besides, it was a great way to learn the graphing feature in Excel for work

Oh, as for the M3, we didn't do a proper launch. The revs were pretty bogged down off the line on that run. My co-worker didn't look up the SMG launch controls until after we were done.

[dymer]

Neat stuff

[yel0wsn0]

Thats nuckin futs! I wish I knew how to do something like that!

[ericjohnston27]

i have a wii, i use it to play video games... but you my friend, are what we call "smarty-pants"

[GoodTurboInside]

man.... i gotta say.. u did some damn good work sir.. but wouldnt it be the same with a stop watch and a second person?? just wondering..

[cvillegti]

Quote, originally posted by SanDiegoR1Rider »

Im really impressed. Also, really disturbed. I feel pity for you and your lack of a social life. I do wish I had a Wii though.

you can play with my wii anytime

no homo.

[Emron]

He got a bit more information out of it than a simple 0-60 time, so no, it wouldn't be the same with a stopwatch.

Secondly, what's with everyone saying that he needs to get a social life and what not. I'm pretty sure I read every word he wrote, and I don't recall seeing anything that hints towards him not having an active social life. He took a class on physics and he applied some of the knowledge to a real-life situation. If you've read about the Wii, you'd have an idea of how it works. He put 2 and 2 together.

I'm not talking down on his work, just saying that the dude doesn't have to be a total nerd to do what he has done.

I guess I kind of formed a pet peeve regarding this type of slander because people tend to call me a nerd as a result of some of the things I say/do. The most annoying saying is, "Man, you must have a lot of free time."

-Emron

[dashrendar]

thats pretty cool. nerdy, but cool

[Smoky_Llama]

Frigging awesome, car looks good.

[klee]

I've certainly spent more time in one night on the MKIV forum than it took me to get this done

[foundubbedriver]

wow.

[Derek Zoolander]

Holy ****, dude. That's awesome whether it's accurate or not
This is the kind of stuff we should all be coming up with.

[Swizz!!]

"look here baby, you takin' dem corners too god damn fast."

i swear if no one gets this reference i'm gonna have to choke a bitch!

[evilpaul]

Good idea and nice work! I've wanted to do something with the wiimote but I haven't thought of anything good enough to go get a blue tooth adapter. I know what I'm buying tomorrow....

[MidNightDrift]

Quote, originally posted by Ubergolf2003 »

That is F*****G awesome

Seriously! I'm too ghetto for Wii, how can I do this with a Super Nintendo?

[jnm2.0t]

as prior poster said... 6.7s for the M3 huh? Should be about 1.5-2 sec. quicker than that.

[klee]

depends on the driver, n'est-ce pas?

[Mussen]

Wow, This thread got on hack-a-day...This must be getting 5-10k hits an hour...

[DouginAZ]

Could you explain what code to put in what file and where, please? I've been playing with the mouse command, But I'm not exactly sure how you got the data to save as files or even how you managed to make it into graph. It's Mind-Boggoling

Any help would be appreciated

TIA, Doug

[klee]

this is all you need to add to the glovepie script.

it'll append the info to output.txt in the glovepie install directory.

//Glovepie v0.29 script

var.t=time*86400

//Writes motion data to file
OutputToFile(RemoveUnits(var.t)+","+Wiimote.gx + ", " + Wiimote.gy + ", " + Wiimote.gz)

debug = var.t+', '+wiimote.gx+', '+wiimote.gy+', '+wiimote.gz

[hockeyizlife94]

Quote, originally posted by Ubergolf2003 »

That is F*****G awesome

coolest thing of the day on the tex that ive seen...but it is 2:44 AM for me so there is still 21 hours for somethign cooler to come up