My attempt at a DIY ODT using two wiimotes and a saucer sled

Hey guys, I posted this over on reddit, and people seemed to like it so I'm posting it here.
Short demo video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQJRBM-2UtE
Little gallery: http://imgur.com/a/r07CS

NOTE: Do not try this! This project is not even close to completion, and may be unsafe to use! This demo is more so a 'proof of concept' that this idea can work. That being said, I would love to hear ideas on how to improve the design. I want to keep it as simple as possible, preferably with things that can be sourced locally.

Anyway. I wanted to try and put together a solid, simple and inexpensive DIY omni directional treadmill. All the parts I used are from Home Depot and Walmart, and I've been able to keep it under a $50 budget.
In the video, you can see my steps look short and very limited. This is partially due by the black tape on the saucer present in the video. I removed the tape after doing the video and stapled the thing down, and now my feet glide much better across the dish.
In the photo gallery you may see that I'm using a backpack as a makeshift harness, which is not a very good idea as the zippers can split under my weight. I was just way too excited to try it out.
The basic idea is that you have a slippery surface to run on, two wiimotes tracking your foot movements, and a rope connected to the ceiling for support. The rope has to be tied behind your back, or else the balance is weird. To secure the rope above me, I screwed into the studs in my ceiling with a couple heavy weight-bearing screws and some carabiners, and threaded a rope through them. I then threaded the Oculus Rift wiring up the ropes for full 360 movement.
The rope is used instead of some kind of waist support (a la Omni and virtualizer) for simplicity of design, an easy way to thread the oculus cables to allow 360 motion, and the natural feel of support that a rope provides. The first design had supports similar to the omni, but I really didn't like it. Plus turning with the rope is super easy, you just have to shift your weight. This results is super fast turns.
Materials used so far:

- 2 disc shaped plastic sleds from walmart @ $5 each
- some wood from home depot, $5
- 2 wii motes (you can find them on ebay for like $11 each)
- a rope ($8 from REI, but home depot has them for $4)
- big screws to put into my ceiling and hold the rope ($3 each, but I would recommend using something else that's rated to support heavy weight)
- nails, staples
- metal bracing

I then used a glovePIE script to take input from the wiimotes. It's super super simple and could be improved upon very easily.

if (wiimote1.RawAccZ) > 0 then
type(“w”)
wait 50ms
type(“w”)
wait 50ms
type(“w”)
wait 50ms
type(“w”)
wait 50ms
type(“w”)
wait 50ms
type(“w”)
wait 50ms
type(“w”)
wait 50ms
type(“w”)
wait 50ms
type(“w”)
endif

if (wiimote2.RawAccZ) > 0 then
type(“w”)
wait 50ms
type(“w”)
wait 50ms
type(“w”)
wait 50ms
type(“w”)
wait 50ms
type(“w”)
wait 50ms
type(“w”)
wait 50ms
type(“w”)
wait 50ms
type(“w”)
wait 50ms
type(“w”)
endif

It just detects when the wiimote has been moved on the Z axis and sends a string of W's to the game. In the future, I want to include the gyro sensors in motion+ wiimotes to do things like strafing, and more accurate motion detection.

The main drawback of this setup is that it requires you to put screws into your ceiling. Other than that, I think it could eventually (with some more work) be a solid DIY solution to walking around in virtual reality.

On reddit, the main advice I got was for a bigger dish to walk on (or no dish at all) and better code. If you guys have any advice, I'd love to hear it, and if anyone wants to improve on the idea, please go ahead! I've got a sweet full-body harness coming in the mail, so any further work I'll be doing will be after that arrives. I'm thinking about buying some sheets of ABS plastic to mold my own dish, but maybe I can find a big satellite dish somewhere for cheap.