iiBoard - Development of a Low-Cost Interactive Whiteboard using the Wiimote Controller

Interactive whiteboards are gaining importance in our society, both at a business level and, especially, at an educational level. However, the products offered by the major manufacturers have a major barrier to their acquisition: very high prices. There is an urgent need to use new technologies in order to provide solutions that present the same performance levels than typical interactive whiteboards, but with a significantly reduced cost. Throughout this paper the steps taken for the development of an innovative low-cost interactive whiteboard are described. The proposed system is based on the Wii Remote command of the Nintendo Wii video-game console. This command, although very inexpensive has an infrared camera, and supports Bluetooth communication. The system control is based on a wireless device, based on infrared emitters, which supports most of the mouse events. A complete whiteboard application was also developed using Borland Delphi for Windows. This application may be used with either one or two Wiimotes and has a very simple and efficient calibration method. The application also includes viewing capabilities of some of the Wiimote characteristics, as well as a flexible Notebook to increase its range of possible uses. The results obtained through a survey conducted to a small set of whiteboard users were very positive indicators about the acceptance of the inexpensive solution proposed.