This guy wanted to get fit without Wii Fit, so he created this ghetto balance board with foam, wood, a Wiimote, and some custom PC software. His objective: A more vigorous exercise method.

I wondered about a way to get fitter, work out without having to go running outside (although that is very healthy). I didn’t think the Wii balance board would do the trick, as the Wii games where reported not to be very intense, and the board itself is too hard for running on it. So what is different about the Swiiboard is that can absorb running effort, measure the effort and perhaps that it can use those measurements to control a virtual environment. It turned out this can be achieved using a Wiimote controller.

For sure, it looks like he’s suffering a lot doing that. However, instead of going through that forest of cylinders, this invention calls for EA’s Fred & Ginger Sim.

Here is how the board is “built”.

[Swiitboard via Hackaday]

Just like in its Wii progenitor, this program follows a simple pattern: feet control bass drums, while the swinging hands take care of each other components, depending on which button is depressed during movement. For such a simple hack it’s kind of impressive how accurately the sounds are matched to movements, and the possibility of endless drum sample customisation means that with some refining, this could actually serve as a passable—if minimal—electronic drum kit. [He Zhao]

Now, this post is similar to Juan González did back in June with his robot, but we’d argue it lacks the personality of Tajima’s cleaning creation, which combines vacuuming with limited physical fitness.

And, let’s face it, stumbling around Azeroth and Google Earth has nothing on a Roomba. [Wii Balance Board Blog via Kotaku]

How he plans on doing this is unclear, but the idea that the Wii Fit peripheral could help people be even lazier is fantastic. According to the man himself:

There are a lot of interesting things that can be done. But first it is important to perform some testing… The next stage will be the controlling of faster-and-wireless robots.

We have called this idea “Robosurfing”. Instead of using the Wii-board to “surf” in virtual environments or controlling virtual vehicles in the games, Why not use it to “surf” real mobile robots in a real scenario? It would be very, very funny.

It’s doubtful that anything like this could be very usable as a mode of tranport, but I have to agree with the “very, very funny” part. [Balance Board Blog]