James Britt: Wii Ruby
Wii Hardware: CPU, IR Sensor bar, Wiimote, nunchuck, balance board.
The nice thing about the hardware is that you can replace the Wii CPU with a
laptop, and still use the rest. Nice 3rd part sensor bar: PSE112 from Psyclone — runs on batteries
Why do we like Java? Because of JRuby and because of the really good libraries.
Java libraries:
– WiiRemoteJ: Closed source, jar only.
– WiiUseJ: Open source (GPL v3) on Java 1.6. Sits on a C library.
Ruby wrappers to these libs:
– WiiRemoteJRuby
– WiiUseJRuby
Your laptop needs bluetooth. The Wiimote has an IR camera that reads the IR
lights in the “sensor bar”. He used Linux to do his work. In theory, it should
work on other platforms as well.
Monkeybars.org – wraps swing in a form of MVC for Ruby
– Controller handles events
– View maps UI to model
– Model holds data
He showed some basic apps he had written. One of them would make music
depending on how you waved the Wiimote.
What’s good?
– Mapping events is easy
– GUI is easy
– MIDI is okay
What’s bad?
– Precise control is HARD
– Project creation is tedious
– Many little annoyances persist
johnnylee.net/projects/wii – great wii hacks
Q: Did you look into the C libraries at all? He went straight to Java.