Wii Balance Board hacked to stroll through Azeroth

Now we’ve seen several homebrew applications come out that pairs up PCs and Wiimotes, but here’s one that uses the Wii Balance Board. Two grad students traverse World of Warcraft’s Azeroth using the Board. Now that’s something that can really catch on. Watch a video of the Board in action in the full article.

In an excellent demonstration of the potential of the Wii Balance Board besides yoga, two undergrad students have hacked the device to stroll through World of Warcraft‘s Azeroth for a project at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence.

To do this, the two students had coded a homebrew application to pair up the Board and the PC through a Bluetooth connection. The program translated leaning motions into in-game movement. A simple shift of weight was all it took to move their character.

As you’ll notice from the video, they don’t actually walk on the Board, but more like surf, which is probably what the developers of Skate It have in mind for their game. Now if they can also hack the Wiimote to act as a Warglaive…

At any rate, here’s hoping the Wiibrew community might get some ideas with this one. Check out the Board at work in World of Warcraft in the vid below: