Back to Wengen

John, from BikeSwitzerland invited me to join him an bike with his next group of 13 riders to Gruyere on Saturday. However it was raining Saturday and as much as I would have enjoyed riding with the group and sharing my perspective I stayed home and built the Wiimote.

But Sunday was a sunny beautiful day and I decided to try and catch up with the new group who were by now leaving Saanen (near Gstaad) on their way to Interlaken. Only a 80km gap to close and with their lunch breaks and sightseeing maybe I could do it.

...and I almost did!

Unfortunately once I hit Gstaad I took a wrong turn and ended up biking 5km back home. I was tempted to call it a day, and just bike back but there was a strong wind blowing from that direction so I decided to go with the flow and keep going.

Once I started the descent from Gstaad, the wind changed directions (typical, no?) and it was a struggle to keep up the speed despite the downhill slope.

In the end, as I pulled into the Interlaken train station, the group was just pulling out on a train to Wengen...

I called John and let him know I just missed them and he suggested I join them in Wengen for a beer. He couldn't believe what I had done!

Anyways, the beer sounded great so I caught the next train up! A beer turned into two and then into a gourmet meal. I had a great evening chatting it up wtih bikers from California, Florida, Washington, Oregon and yes, Colorado! I then caught a train back home! What a day!

Wiimote Whiteboard

Several months ago when Dedi was exploring the costs and benefits of multithousand dollar electronic whiteboards for her classroom, I mentioned I had read about a sub $100 solution built using a Wii remote controller.

I should have known that this would lead to 'When can you build it?'

So I consulted Johnny Chung Lee's web page (http:johnnylee.net) and went to work. All I needed was a Wii remote controller (Wiimote), a software download, and a 'home built' IR (infrared pen).

I think this would have been much easier to do in the USA which has Radio Shacks scattered around, but here in Swiss-land it was quite the challenge.

Dedi found a Wiimote for under $50 and a pushbutton switch, and brother Don brought in the $2.00 IR LED during his visit. All I needed to find was a bluetooth USB adapter for our Vista PC, a battery case to hold the batteries in the 'yet to be built' IR pen, a marker for the IR pen case and a resistor and capacitor.

Long story short, no battery cases, resistors or capacitors to be found and no luck finding a Vista compatible blue tooth adapter. I gave up on the resistor/capacitor search and modified the design to work with one battery and hopefully not fry the LED or battery without a series resistor...yes I know I'm losing my audience here!

I finally got an XP version to work on Vista after a few driver donwloads so now all I needed was the battery case. I gutted a dry erase marker, cut a hole in the side for the switch, and was considering soldering to the battery...not a good idea I'm sure...I put that decision off and tried to assemble the switch and LED into the marker.

Dry Marker with still intact push button switch...




















But during initial assembly I broke the switch....and yes, no switches to be found at any of the hardware or electronic stores accessible by mere mortal consumers like me!

So we scrounged around the house for a switch and finally I settled on a broken mouse for the switch source.
(disassembled mouse with tiny internal switches...)


I de-soldered the internal switches and on the 2nd try found one that survived the disassembly. Dedi suggested an old electric tooth brush for the battery case so, Dremel tool in hand I sliced through a pretty grungy one and lo and behold found two wires protruding from the battery section...YES!

In the end I put it all together and I will admit it's not a pretty sight. For one the hole for the switch is too big for the mouse switch and the toothbrush end protruding from the backside does look a bit weird.

But it works. We calibrated a surface on the wall and holding the light pen drew some imaginary pictures on the wall. Like magic they showed up on the computer screen. With a projector system, Dedi could project interactive programs on a wall and her students could interact directly on the projected image.

Oh, and to support the Wiimote, I fashioned a bracket that mounts to a tripod!



Working product!

Bike Switzerland Tour

Just got back from a bike tour across Switzerland! It was a great time. Met some really nice people, had tons of fun with Dedi, Don and Andrea, and saw some incredible sights..not to mention that it was just plain fun to roll across the country and enjoy great food and hotels! Here's a couple shots, but there are just too many picture to load on the blog, so here's a link to the picasa page that is slowly uploading the photos.

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/ddfisch/20080816bikeswitzerland



Cheers, Dave

Swiss bar-b-que

Had some friends over for a nice Barb-B-Que tonight....Rain threatened but didn't reach our little space on the hill! Did get some nice shots of the rainbow and all-around smiles!