paper: Control an FRC bot with a Wiimote

[Greg Marra]

Thread created automatically to discuss a document in CD-Media.

Control an FRC bot with a Wiimote by Greg Marra

[CyberWolf_22]

Hey this is pretty cool. I might look into doing this for demos.

Has anyone looked into hacking just the nunchaku for use during competition?

[cjtenny]

It's easy enough... just cut the cable, hook to a screw terminal block, and then set it up with I2C.

[Greg Marra]

Originally Posted by cjtenny

It's easy enough... just cut the cable, hook to a screw terminal block, and then set it up with I2C.

Can you elaborate? I had considered opening up a nunchuk and hacking leads onto various parts to plug the Nunchuk into the Operator Interface legally, but I think your solution would attach the Nunchuk to the RC.

[Tim Arnold]

Greg, you are amazing and must have both far more time and drive than I or anyone else I know. Every time that using the Wiimote has come up, I have laughed it off and said it was nearly impossible and incredibly impractical to do. While the latter might be still true, congratulations on proving us wrong as far as the technical feasibility... I hope to see some teams try out this bad boy!

<sarcasm>How about an easyC version?</sarcasm>

[cjtenny]

Well, I2C is a standard protocol. I actually have a nunchuk sitting in my room for use on another non-FIRST robot... haven't gotten around to it, though.

But, yeah, you bring a good point -- I forgot you load code to the RC. What you'd have to do for the OI would be build a custom circuit that turns the nunchuk output into some serial-joystick type output. That part's probably not too hard, just stick a uC on a breadboard -- the question is, would that be legal?

[Greg Marra]

Originally Posted by cjtenny

Well, I2C is a standard protocol. I actually have a nunchuk sitting in my room for use on another non-FIRST robot... haven't gotten around to it, though.

Do you have a hyperlink for using a Nunchuk via I2C? I am doing a bit of Googling but only turning up people working on it, not anyone who seems to have an implementable solution. I found a site showing you how to make a Wiimote add-on, but nothing explaining how to use a wiimote add-on on its own.

I'm not very familiar with microprocessor communication protocols other than serial, so I am very excited to find out more about this. Using a nunchuk on its own would be really cool.

Originally Posted by Tim Arnold

Every time that using the Wiimote has come up, I have laughed it off and said it was nearly impossible and incredibly impractical to do.

Thanks Tim. This implementation still isn't competition legal, and it's very impractical, but it is a step towards possible. This "nunchuks use I2C" business could result in competition legal use of the Nunchuks, which would be awesome. Alternatively, I suspect Nunchuks are possible to circuit-hijack. I'll take one apart at some point and look, but I lost my tri-head screwdriver

[cjtenny]

Let me get back to you about this on Wednesday, after my history midyear. I'll try and write something up / figure something out...

[cjtenny]

In the meantime,
http://www.windmeadow.com/node/42?page=1

It doesn't show you how to get down-and-dirty with I2C, but the hard part would be going from I2C to whatever the OI wants.