I love how the prototype looks – it’s stuff stacked on top of other stuff! The base of the robot chair is a Pioneer 3 robot, which is equipped with sonar sensors. The researchers used these sensors to make the robot detect whether a collision is imminent and override the baby’s butt’s input. The researchers also have a master override joystick that they can use to remotely control the chair. You can clearly see the Wii Balance Board below the plastic chair. A program was made so that the Pioneer 3 could use the input from the Balance Board’s sensors – a sustained lean would be taken as a sign that the baby wanted to move in that direction, so the robot would move accordingly.

The researchers were able to test the robot chair on babies 7 to 9 months old. The babies were coaxed to move the chair when they were offered a toy or food. But they also moved randomly, even when they weren’t being urged to do so. Oh babies. The researchers did admit however when they published their paper that they had not spent enough time to confirm if the babies realized that their input caused the robot to move. But I bet they do. I would so pay to see this thing in action.

[via Cornell Academia via NCPAD via PopSci]

You may be thinking of games like Steel Battalion right now, and while that game was certainly one answer for all your robot combat needs, the game was pricey and the peripheral more so. Is there a cheaper solution? With Overturn, maybe so. Studio Zan’s WiiWare (that means cheap!) game features a “regular” control scheme using the Wii remote and nunchuk… and also a mode that supports the Wii Balance Board so you can get your feet into the game. So the combination is still expensive, but not as much as we’ve seen for similar items in the past.

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Overturn hasn’t been officially announced for North America, but as the title turned up on the ESRB website recently, it seems a lock for the region. It’s already out in Japan.

[via Siliconera]

A couple of guys from DFKI (the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence) took a Balance Board and connected it to a regular old laptop PC. A custom C# application communicates with the controller via Bluetooth, translating simple leaning movements on the board into 3D moves on the computer. By leaning forwards, back, left and right on the Balance Board, the player can move through a typical first-person view game with ease.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

While this demo shows off some basic movements within Google Earth and WOW3, I’d venture to say that it could be easily modified to control any first-person 3D game. Imagine playing a FPS in which you hold onto a gun controller with your hands, and move around the environment by leaning. Even better yet, how about an FPS which supported ducking and dodging bullets on the Balance Board? Now that would be really cool. Only time will tell what other applications end up taking advantage of the board’s unique sensory abilities, but I’d lay odds that Wii Fit is only the tip of the iceberg.

[Balance Board Blog via Hack-a-Day]