We've all been entertained by Wiimote hackery in the past, but I for one can never tire of the new inventions constantly being cooked up by clever sausages like this guy.


Using the Wiimote and an LED light, William Luxemburg from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands knocked together a water-level sensor, measuring evaporation. As you can see from the picture, a tub of water with a Wiimote pointing at a plastic boat is a simple and cost-effective way to achieve the same—or even better—results that pressure sensors costing $500 or more can produce.


Of course, it wasn't merely a Wiimote trained at a boat in a tub of water, which solved Luxemburg's dilemma. He re-programmed the Wiimote's output, and as it can sense movement better than a lot of other devices out there (closer than 1mm accuracy, as Wired points out), when it was connected wirelessly to a laptop he was able to receive real-time information on what the water level was doing in the tub.

Luxemburg doesn't sound like he's going to stop there however. He's intrigued by what else a Wiimote could be used on, if programmed the right way.

"If you have a structure that collapses and you have Wiimotes on the building, you could see how fast it falls"

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That sort of information is priceless to the right party, and considering Wiimotes cost just $40, don't be surprised if you hear of plenty more innovative uses for Nintendo's little remote. [Wired]