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= What’s it all about? = “Can you program the Wii to simulate a work tool like an air spray gun?”

This question was asked of us over 18 months ago by a trades trainer and our first response was “Not really sure, but sounds like a great idea!”

The reason we weren’t really sure was that game consoles such as the Microsoft Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii use proprietary developer kits to build the games that you can play on these systems. These developer kits need to be applied for, and paid for, directly from the console companies. What’s even scarier than that for us is that we are humble html and Flash developers and these kits are based on the C++ language that we have not been trained to use. The idea though was interesting and we could see the appeal to learners on many levels, so it got stored away in our memory bank. In our own spare time we would poke away on the web to see what people were doing with Wii.

We were lucky enough to be given an Innovations grant from the Australian Flexible Learning Framework to pursue this idea and we started looking into creating a Flash application that would use a Wiimote to simulate using a real air spray gun. The user could then point the virtual spray gun at a large screen and practice the correct movement and motion required to spray correctly. The visual effect of spray paint would be applied to the screen from the evaluation of the user's motion. If they moved the wiimote quickly they would get a thin coat, too slowly and the paint would run. An application of this nature would allow for students to practice their skills before using the real spray booth, it would also help to reduce the environmental costs of paint, fumes and spray room availability. Using the popular Nintendo Wii would provide a connection with the target audience of young male apprentices allowing them to learn with a trendy tool that has an appropriate physical form of interaction. The Wii is a popular games system and students who have the console would have the opportunity to practice their craft from home.

As an addition to our project we were asked to create a case study so developers in the future could learn from our success and mistakes so as not to fall into the same traps.

This Innovation project gave us a very good opportunity to learn about what can and can't be done with a Wii for education purposes. We looked at what is involved in developing a Wii application, and how we can use the physicality of this input device to build better learning experiences. What we were yet to discover was that there was something bigger than spray painting...but we'll get to that later.

We made our start by connecting the Wii to the Internet through our network so we could test how that might work.