Controlling movement with a Wii Balance Board

Yes, but they don't make you start the game over again if they detect socks. I think the socks are a traction issue, while jumping on the board will break it pretty quickly.

XD.

I don't know what the design limits are.

The boards do note that they have a 150 kg weight limit. (in the west, anyway. In japan the stated limit is 136 kg)

The funny thing about the inconsistent weight limit figures is that the two boards are physically identical in every regard, so it's purely a cultural thing. XD

Now, obviously, the board must be able to support more than 150 kg, because there are many things you can do that would temporarily make your effective weight larger than your actual weight.

I would guess the extra force applied by someone jumping on the board could be quite substantial. (I can't be bothered trying to calculate the likely deceleration though, given that I'd have to estimate both the height of the fall, and the distance through which the deceleration occurred.)

But yes, in the end I do assume it's unlikely to be a good idea to jump on the board constantly.
Something is liable to break.

It could well be you though, depending on how you land... XD

Jumping on the Balance Board while not being able to see it is definitely a bad idea. I'd be much more concerned about breaking my ankle (or something worse) than breaking the board. At any rate, and as it has already been pointed out, being able to physically jump is unlikely to be very compelling anyway.

updated original post with a new video

Looks nice. Any updates to your impression of it while sitting down?

I'm working on a cockpit based project right now, toying with the idea of picking up a board and trying to integrate it. It'll be hard enough selling the boss on letting me integrate the Hydra as a control scheme.

Works great while sitting down, you just have to use your feet more than your hips.

I did at some point wonder if it's viable to mimic the foot pedals of an aircraft with a balance board...

It seems like all the required control is there, since in an aircraft the foot pedals typically have 2 functions;

The first is controlling the yaw movements of the aircraft; This is a single rotation axis shared by both pedals, and basically relates to pushing in one foot more than the other. (In terms of the Wii balance board, apply more pressure to one side of the board.)

The other use is that typically, when on the ground, you can control the brakes by applying pressure with your toes. - That's equivalent to applying pressure in the top corners of the board.

In fact, if you can get the angles right (the controls of an aircraft wouldn't be level with the ground), a balance board would function almost identically to the real thing, although with less physical movement involved...

I'm not sure if angling the board causes any bad behaviour from the board though... I'm guessing from it's design, that the strain sensors are physically tied to the device's 4 feet though, so you would have to support all 4 of them quite well to use it at an angle.

I think it would work fine if you angled it. Just put some sort of sturdy wedge under it. The readings might not be even, but if you use relative values instead of absolute it should be fine.

I got my official board in the post today, first thing I found, negative sensor values which breaks my code, so if anyone tried v0.1 and wondered 'WTF is this doing...', it's down to me making assumptions from using an EA board.

The good news is the official boards sensors are a lot more reactive, so usage while seated is now pleasant to use, where previously I had to stomp EA board.

Found out from the Wiibrew wiki that you can send a special pin code when pairing a Wii device, it then remembers the host bluetooth adapter. This means no taking off the battery cover! You just push the power button and connect, even after a battery change. You cannot enter the pin using the Windows bluetooth GUI, so v0.2 has a button to do the pairing for you.

Version 0.2 is nearly ready to go, just need to finish off some jumping code :)

Thanks for your work on this stand alone app whoisrich! It's very handy for letting people get a feel of what it's like to use their balance as a movement controller for their characters in existing games. Don't know if you've seen it yet but someone has posted a video to youtube using your app to play Crysis 2 and Skyrim