Wii Whiteboard

The idea for a "SMARTboard" made using an infrared LED pen and a Wii remote came from a man named Johnny Lee, and was presented at a TED conference.

Admittedly, this is probably beyond some people in terms of setting this up. I do believe, however, that there is enough information and support to get most people through the process.

Everything I did, I learned about through Johnny Lee's web site, http://johnnylee.net/projects/wii/ , an online forum dedicated to the subject (http://www.wiimoteproject.com/ and the YouTube videos of many helpful teachers (Just search for Wii whiteboard).

All of the supplies you made can be purchased for less than $100. The IR pen can be made for around $5 if you have some basic electronics skills, or can be purchased for $10-$20. Wii remotes can be found at big box stores for $40, and it's not hard to make a little stand for the remote with wood or thick cardboard. If your computer doesn't have bluetooth, you'll need a USB Bluetooth dongle to receive the signal from the Wii remote. http://www.wiiteachers.com/ has all of the supplies you'd need, though you could probably get some better deals by shopping around for individual parts.

As for software, there are a few things you need. First, you'll have to have a program that interprets the signal from the Wii remote. You can get a free one at Wiimoteproject.com, at this address: http://www.wiimoteproject.com/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=14 . You'll also want a whiteboard program (a white background that you can write on). A free whiteboard program is Massiveboard, available at http://www.wiimoteproject.com/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=26 . If you want to simplify things for yourself, you can get a program that includes both of those features called Smoothboard (http://www.smoothboard.net/downloads ), but it does cost $30 to continue using it for longer than 30 days. I used Smoothboard for 30 days to get my remote placed somewhere that worked well and iron out a few of the kinks, then switched to the other two.

A physics program for use with interactive whiteboards is Algodoo (http://www.algodoo.com/wiki/Home). This allows you to manipulate various objects in a physics simulation environment, which is very handy for showing those massless ropes and frictionless planes. To get an idea of how you could use it, check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMrkF47eBlg . There is also a free version (with limited functionality, but still a pretty cool toy) called Phun, which can be downloaded at http://www.phunland.com/wiki/Download .

Sadly, the greatest difficulty you might face in getting this into your classroom is a lack of ability to install programs and new devices onto your school computer. I got around this by running everything from my personal laptop, but you might be able to get these on your school computer with the help of one of the technology people in your district.