One of our students Joel Clemens gave a demonstration of his impressive fourth year project, Virtual Wiiality Redux. He used common consumer components like the Sony SIXAXIS controller, which has motion sensing, to create an virtual reality system. In the picture above you see me with the helmet (with the SIXAXIS velcroed above) experiencing the 3D space (a version of our lab with a gaping chasm below my feet.) The strange broom thing was Joel’s solution to tracking where I am in the space. It has a small bowling ball with rollers to capture movement. The broom “floor mouse” didn’t work as well as the head tracking set, which was very responsive. With hackers like Joel and cheap motion tracking controllers, DIY VR may be a real “wiiality”. Check out his extensive web site.