Windmeadow Labs

I wanted to use the wii nunchuck accelerometer for some measurements. I didn't really want to drag my computer around, so I built a little data logger. The nunchuck accelerometer data gets written to an eeprom. Then later I can download the data to my PC.

Setting up a good apache test website can be a pain. Mod_backhand can help simply things.

Usually your have your live website, www.mycompany.com, then you may have a dev website called something like dev.www.mycompany.com. Sometimes using a non production domain name causes problems. It shouldn't but sometimes when you use legacy code or third party programs, you don't have total control of everything. Then you can get into DNS tricks, changing host files, etc...

Here is simple howto, to run your lawnmower off of propane gas instead of gasoline.

It was much easier to run off of propane than I thought it would be. First I pulled off the gas tank and carburetor. Next I got a length of hose. I took one end and put it just inside the intake manifold. I then got my propane stove and took of its burner. I attached the other end of the hose to the stove's gas outlet, then used some duct tape to try and hold everything in place.

Wood gasification is the process of turning wood into carbon monoxide and hydrogen by reacting the raw material (wood) at high temperatures with a controlled amount of oxygen. Without oxygen, the wood can't burn so it transforms into gas. This gas can be used as fuel in an internal combustion engine.

The Wiimote makes a perfect control system for a fire fighting robot.

It has IR sensors which can detect a candle and a bluetooth transciever to communicate back to a host computer. I use a boebot as the robot platform, an arduino, wiimote and a Linux computer.

With a little hacking, data can be read from a wii nunchuck directly into an Arduino, using TWI (aka I2C). The nunchuck contains a 3 axis accelerometer, joystick and buttons for only $19.95. The same accelerometer in kit form, cost $34.95 at Sparkfun. Plus the nunchuck is already wired up in a nice clean case! So the wii nunchuck should fit nicely into anyones robotic project.

After some trying, I have been able to use a wiimote for two-way communication for an Arduino. So far I just have a proof of concept. The code is very rough. For the set up and wiring, first look at my earlier entry on using the wiimote for one way communication.

With a little wiring a Wiimote can be made into a cheap bluetooth transmitter for your microcontroller project. Wiimote peripherals like the nunchuk, communicate with the wiimote over I2C (aka Two Wire Interface, TWI). A number of microcontrollers support TWI, such as the Arduino,the Make Controller and Atmels ATmega series. I am using an arduino with a ATmega168 for this project.

A number news storys have pointed out how easy it is to have your data compromised via a stolen laptop. After about a dozen of these lost laptop/missing goverment data stories, I got to thinking about my own data. I carry my laptop everywhere and it contains a lot stuff that I wouldn't want an identity thief to get his hands on.

I wrote a perl module to interface with the wiimote. You can download the source here. It is fairly quick and dirty, but most of the wiimotes functions can be accessed by perl.

The axis, tilt, D-pad, keys, rumble, nunchuck joystick, nunchuck buttons and nunchuck tilt all work. The module accesses the C library, libcwiimote, that Joel Andersson wrote. Most of the real credit should go to him.

I have tested it on a laptop running Suse 10.0 with a USB bluetooth dongle. I got the dongle off ebay for $5.
lsusb lists my bluetooth dongle as: