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Low cost Interactive systems

Asheesh Sharma and Harshal Akhouri

Abstract—Technology brings the tools of empowering the was redesigned into a more specific whiteboard emulation
hands and minds of the people who use them. We are moving to a software viz. Echo, which is based on Brian Peek’s .Net
new phase of development where we need technologies to be library– WiimoteLib [1]–[3]. The basic functionality includes
efficient. They should be light on resources, so that they can be annotation, sharing the written material over a shared
made available to everyone. Today, to access the world, people
connection.
need skills like collaboration, teamwork, creative problem solving
and more. Thus there is need of evolving emerging technologies
into more revolutionary forms such that they require least Second study is in development stage. According to the
dependencies. In this paper, we present two studies on making thesis, an array of LEDs and LDRs emulates a touch
interactive systems based on low cost hardware. In the first responsive display. Most of these diodes are available
study, we demonstrate an Interactive whiteboard (IWB) which everywhere in the electronics market. This system costs
relies on readily available hardware. In the second, we explain a approximately $5.
system consisting of an array of LEDs and LDRs, which can be a
cheap alternative to touch responsive displays.
II. LOW COST INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD
Keywords—Array, Dependencies, Hardware, IWB, LDR, LED,
Technology
A. Existing Whiteboard technologies
I. INTRODUCTION A traditional classroom struggles to adapt according to the
demand of today’s educational needs. This may be due to
T echnology is like weather which changes with the spinning
globe. Most of these are designed to work in background
without being known to the end user. However the general
lesser funds, but this is a disadvantage of the technology that to
solve the problem, it requires so many resources that it
becomes unaffordable. Table 1 shows the various IWBs
issue is being light on resources. Technology is of no use if it
available in the market. As per the Table 1, Whiteboards
takes too much of load to meet the requirement. While things
cannot be availed to low budgeted schools and colleges. If we
are getting cheaper and smaller, technologies have to be smart
compare the mentioned products with our IWB (explained in
enough otherwise they will get diluted to other forms or they
this paper), prices get reduced to1/4th.
will simply vanish. Another issue is availability. What if the
approach solves the problem but is not available to all the end
This study presents an opportunity to every school and
users. Same type of problem can be solved by many
college to get equipped with the aids which simplifies the
technological approaches. In such a case, the main issue that
experiences of learning and teaching. Thus, the paper
matters is availability, which makes difference between a
simplifies the technologies used today.
successful approach and others.
Hardware on which this IWB relies, is commonly available.
First study describes how the use of simple hardware can It includes a Wii remote, an Infrared LED pen and a Projector.
change the way we see a classroom whiteboards today. The
whole system costs approximately $30. We used a Wii The calibration and mouse cursor emulation software
Remote [1], an Infrared LED pen and a software to digitalize
namely Echo, is an open source software (source code and the
the teaching and learning experience. The Wii Remote is the
binaries are not yet available on the internet) which is a light
primary controller for the Wii (pronounced : we) gaming
weight , cross platform application. It communicates with the
console. This design allows users to control the game using
physical gestures as well as traditional button presses [1]– Wii Remote to track the Infrared blobs. This data is then used
[2].The calibration and mouse cursor emulation software to simulate the cursor.

TABLE I
PRODUCT AND COSTS OF AVAILABLE IWBS
Manuscript received November 9, 2010. Product Quantity
Asheesh Sharma is with Arya College of Engineering & I.T, SP-40/42, Polyvision ēno Classic 2610 $2,667.00
Kukas Industrial Area (RIICO),Delhi Road, Jaipur (Rajasthan) India. He is
Plus UPIC Interactive Panel $940.00
pursuing B. Tech from the same. (e-mail: Asheeshkrsharma@hotmail.com).
PolyVision TS 620 $995.00
Harshal Akhouri is with Arya College of Engineering & I.T, SP–40/42,
Kukas Industrial Area (RIICO),Delhi Road, Jaipur (Rajasthan) India. He is PolyVision ēno Click 2650 $1695.00
pursuing B. Tech from the same. (e-mail harshalakhouri@hotmail.com). Various whiteboards and their prices [4].

B. Tools
Wii Remote: In 2005, Nintendo mass produced Wii Remote
to replace traditional joysticks [2]. It is an IR camera with a
resolution of 1024x768 and built-in blob tracking of up to 4
points. It uses built-in accelerometers and infrared detection
systems to sense its position in 3D space when pointed at
the Infrared LEDs within the sensor bar. Despite the fact that
Nintendo provides no support for Wii Remote to PC
connection, it can be connected to desktops and laptops via
Bluetooth. The Bluetooth program BlueSoleil [1]-[5] has been
proven to successfully connect a Wii Remote to PC.
IR pens and Pico projectors: An IR pen is a simple circuit
which has an Infrared LED with good viewing angle, a
momentary switch , a resistor and a battery. These are really
cheap to build. Pico projectors are portable 50 inch display
projectors, which are really cheap and easily available.
Echo Whiteboard simulation software: In 2007, Brian Peek
released a .NET library to utilize the features of Wii Remote
on a PC. It was used to design Echo, which is a cross
platformed, calibration and mouse cursor emulation software.
It has the following features:
Cross platform support Modes
Annotation Notification
Cursor smoothing Basic drawing tools
Movement detection
Calibration
Anti aliasing
C. System
Wii Remote can be connected to PC via Bluetooth,
BlueSoleil [1]-[5] easily connects them together. After that
Echo automatically detects that a Wii Remote is available on
the PC, and shows calibration screen. Wii Remote is pointed
towards the projection screen keeping in mind that Wii
Remote has a limited viewpoint angle. The arrangement of the
system is shown in Figure 1.
Fig. 1. Arrangement of the system.
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D. Future works
Drawing tools: Present Whiteboard has few drawing tools,
further work is needed to develop such tools.
Publishing: Publishing compilations in form of documents
and then sharing same files over a connection, will give
teachers a new advantage.
III. LOW COST AUGMENTATION SYSTEM
The direct or indirect view of a physical real world whose
elements are augmented by virtual, computer generated
graphics, that use computer vision techniques is a new field of
research [6]. The technology enhances one’s current
perception of reality. Though its usability is rewarding, still
there are very few ways in which augmentation has been
applied. This paper presents a theoretically possible device
which will be able to perform augmentation using simple
components.
A. Components
LED: A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor light
source. LEDs are used as indicator lamps in many devices.
The particular LED used had a viewing angle of 180 degrees
[7].
LDR: A photo resistor or light-dependent resistor (LDR) is
a resistor whose resistance decreases with increasing incident
light intensity [8].
B. System
The system consists of a chip with integrated units of LEDs
and LDRs. LDRs are placed just below the LEDs. Now when a
LED is touched, the depression due to the touch causes light to
scatter on the LDR which increases its resistance. This
information is monitored by microcontroller. Since every
individual unit has a different physical location, the system
can detect the location of a touch within the calibration area.
Figure 2 shows arrangement of the units in the chip.
Fig. 2. Arrangement of units and components of a unit.

C. Future work
The above mentioned chip can be arranged as shown in
Figure 3.The result is a real-time 3D scanner. The data is fed
into the system using machine learning technique. When a
particular gesture action is made inside the cube, it creates a
3D model, which is then matched by the previously fed data
models. This approach will help in developing 3D graphs with
great precision and great details as well.
Fig. 3. Arrangement of chips in form a cube.
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IV. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was carried out in Arya College Of Engineering
and I.T., which assisted us throughout the course of this work.
V. REFERENCES
[1] Wikipedia, “Wii Remote”. Available:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_Remote
As on Thursday, 28 October 2010, 9:59:36 GMT
[2] Johnny Chung Lee,” Low-Cost Multi-point Interactive Whiteboards
Using the Wiimote”. Available:
http://johnnylee.net/projects/wii/
As on Thursday, 28 October 2010, 6:19:00 GMT
[3] Brian peek, “Managed Library for Nintendo's Wiimote” Available:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/coding4fun/archive/2007/03/14/1879033.aspx
As on Thursday, 28 October 2010, 8:58:42 GMT
[4] Plus-boards “Presentation Tools” pp. 5-7. Available:
www.plusboards.com/index/products_list/category/Presentation_Tools/p
age/5
As on Thursday, 28 October 2010, 7:22:30 GMT
[5] BlueSoleil, “Bluetooth software” Available:
http://www.bluesoleil.com/
As on Thursday, 28 October 2010, 9:30:31 GMT
[6] Wikipedia, “Augmented reality”. Available:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality
As on Thursday, 29 October 2010, 11:12:36 GMT
[7] Wikipedia, “Light-emitting diode”. Available:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode
As on Thursday, 29 October 2010, 8:45:36 GMT
[8] Wikipedia, “Photo resistor”. Available:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Dependent_Resistor
As on Thursday, 29 October 2010, 6:57:36 GMT