Bondo Basics: Everything You Need to Know

Before you use bondo to make Mario pop out of your Wii (below), you must first learn the basics of bondo usage. Here and here are a few quick, simple tutorials that demonstrate how to mix Bondo to make custom colors. Here is someone’s first experience with Bondo and a few Do’s and Dont’s. And finally, we have a comprehensive guide from prep work to completion for any Bondo project.

Bondo Use #1: Custom Case Mods

So, you’ve got a Wii, but it’s just so…WHITE. One man took his love for NES’ Super Mario Bros. 3 and customized his Wii based on the game’s internationally recognizable backgrounds. Also, learn to create custom sculptures using Bondo. The tutorial also walks you though adding another USB port and creating portal tubes to hold your Wiimote.

2. Cement and Asphalt Repair

The video above shows a skater repairing a crack in cement that’s hindering his shredding skill. He shows an incredibly easy and quick way to seal a crack using duct tape, bondo, and a scraper.

3. Fiber Glass Mold Making and Repair

This site is a Bondo lover’s dream. It has hours of mold making projects and guides to help you master the power of bondo. For example, just take a look at this sweet Cobra helicoptper ceiling fan.

4. Translucent Guitar Hero Key Molding

Guitar Hero rocks, but it really needs some lights to liven up the virtual shredding. What to do Cram in some LEDs! For a more Bondo specific tutorial, learn to create the translucent keys. “I recently modded a Guitar Hero controller and I’m going to show you how to create duplicates of your GH Controller keys in frosted clear plastic.”

5. Miscellaneous Uses: Car Repair, Rock Climbing Grips

As you’ve hopefully noticed out by now, Bondo is incredibly versile and its uses are limitless. Take for example how to make custom rock climbing hand holds (left image) or how to fix rust spots on your car (which was Bondo’s original purpose). So whatever power of Bondo you choose to harness, good look on your quest and be sure to send us your projects.

• Build an Epic Mobile Bar Robot

The chief factor in its design is the weight of the steel drum plus the volume of the beer inside. What’s required are some heavy duty motors attached to the wheels of a lawnmower. The chassis is an improvised furniture dolly strong enough to bear all that weight including the batteries. The trick behind opening and closing of the beer tap is a solenoid which acts like an electro-magnetic valve. A CO2 canister for the froth and a steel keg complete the setup. A Micromatic tap draws the pressurized beer from the keg.

The KegBot is brought alive using electronics like speed controllers and a radio receiver. The video shows how the whole assembly is put together with a few more nuts and bolts. The only thing the video might not help you with is sending out invitations for the beer binge.

Liked this cool robot project? Maybe a few more of our robot projects will send your spirits soaring.

• Build an Epic Mobile Bar
• MIT’s Speedy Motorized Shopping Cart
• Wiimote Controlled Lawn Mower

Laser harp inventor Steven Hobley is back with another exceptional project.  We covered his outstanding laser harp build last year and was also included in our Top 40 Arduino Projects.  So what’s so cool about a harp anyways?  It’s just the incredible cool factor of a classical instrument meeting the future with wicked bright lasers now combined with a “Harp-Hero” video game interface.

A single 450-milliwatt green laser beam reflected by fast moving motorized mirror ‘creates’ multiple beams very rapidly. The variation in hand movements through the laser beams creates the flux. This symphonic change in the beam is picked up by sensor arrays connected to a Nintendo Wiimote. An impOSCar VSTi software synthesizer on a computer interprets the signals via Bluetooth and that’s how hand motion becomes music.

The innovator has shared some of the details on his website and the above video.  If you are looking for more laser projects beam over to view all of our laser projects and buy lasers from our store for your next laser project supplies.

Although you can’t play with Wiimote controlled 15 ton grapples in the living room. This hack isn’t anything like the Lego Mindstorms NXT Robot controlled with a Wiimote or the Wiimote operated Lawnmower. This one has gone king-size. This thing is a beast of a robotic monster and rigging it with a Wiimote making this one of the heavy duty Wiimote hacks we’ve seen.

The Wiimote + the Python programmed control is even more awe inspiring because each grapple arm can spin at a top speed of 72kms/hour or 12 revolutions per minute. Each arm needs to avoid collision with the other. And with each having a reach of 16 meters it’s recommended to stay as far back as possible.

For more achievable DIY Wiimote hacks check out the Top 30 Wiimote Hacks of the Web.

See also: Top 30 Wiimote Hacks of the Web

Anyone who’s interested in virtual reality will find German Timo Fleisch quite fascinating. He’s the one who originally came up with a way to combine Nintendo Wii remotes and IR LED’s, in order to create virtual reality environments. Even though Fleisch is the master-mind behind this technique, with the right equipment and know-how, anybody can setup their very own virtual reality world.

Here are the basics:

• First, the user holds an object in front of a monitor. He has a Wii remote set up above the monitor facing the table on which it stands.
• The object that is being held is equipped with some IR LED’s so that the remote can identify it and determine its location.
• The second remote is pointed towards the user who is also equipped with IR LED’s. Just the same as the object, this allows the system to determine the user’s location.
• From there, the computer uses all of this information to display an interactive image based on the object in relation to the user.

“The core of this VR setup is using the Nintendo Wiimote Controller as a tracking camera. As one might already know the Wiimote is equipped with an infra-red camera that is able to recognize up to four infra-red lights. The main idea now is to build a device with four infra-red LEDs that can be recognized by the Wiimote. I call this device infrared beacon. Using the values of the 4 LEDs as recognized by the Wiimote I use an algorithm to reconstruct the original position and orientation of the IR LED beacon. Getting all 3 axis translations and all 3 axis rotation angles of the device is called 6 degree of freedom tracking or short 6DOF tracking.”

For a visual explanation and a better idea of how to get started, take a look at his Wiimote Desktop Virtual Reality video:

A NXTway-GS robot is a self balancing two wheeled robotic toy built using the Lego Mindstorms robotic kit. Think of this hack as the NXTway based version of the self balancing Segway-like robot we had covered earlier. This hack is for the NXT enthusiast and the guy who likes to do things with his Wii.� The project blog takes you through the programming needed to hack the NXT firmware and teach the robot some new moves.

What you will need:

• Lego Mindstorms NXT with OSEK firmware and the NXTway-GS program loaded.
• A Wiimote.
• Ubuntu and Bluetooth modules.
• The Python script to parse the Wiimote data and send it to the Lego NXT.

The hack covers the programming and the firmware upgrades through three steps:

1. Enhance the firmware of the NXT and upload the nxtOSEK open source code to create the operating environment.
2. Set up the remote connection between the NXT and a laptop.
3. Install the software to interface the Wiimote with the NXT.

If you are looking for more robotic challenges, jump over to our collection of Robots hacks and Wiimote hacks.

• Pick up LEDs, servo motors and project supplies in our DIY store.
• Don’t miss our famous Top 40 Arduino Projects of the Web

30. Easily Connect a Wiimote to your PC
29. Firefighting Robot
28. Control a Modular Synth
27. Make Custom DJ Beats
26. Wiitar: A Wiimote Based Guitar
25. How to Graphically Visualize Wiimote Data
24. Airsoft Gun Remote Control
23. Control Your House with a Wiimote
22. Use the WiiMote as a mouse (method 2)
21. Old School Powerglove

20. Use a Wiimote to control your Keynote presentation
19. Graphic Visual Interaction with eMotion
18. The Self Balancing SegWii
17. Wiimote Rapid Fire Gaming Mod
16. Theremin DIY Music
    
15. Level, Protractor and Measurement tool
14. Auto Aiming USB Missile Launcher
13. How to Play Counter Strike, CoD, any PC Game with a WiiMote
12. Wiimote Virtual Air Drums
11. Control an RC car (another method)

10. Interfacing Google Earth with a Wiimote
9. Industrial Robotic Arm Control
   
8. Wiimote controlled Hexapod Robots
7. Finger Tracking and Image Sorting
6. Control a Canoe, Servo Motors with the Wiimote Joystick
5. Arduino and NunChuck = Real Time DIY Pan & Tilt Camera
4. Head-tracking with the Wiimote
3. Create your own Multitouch Whiteboard Display
2. Wiimote Controlled Lawn Mower
1. Foldable Display Tracking using the Wiimote

That’s the best of the best.  You can subscribe to HacknMod for future posts.  Did we miss any? Let us know in the comments.

People are getting extremely creative with innovative ways to physically interact with game consoles. These hackers combined one of the greatest NES titles, Punch-Out with a boxing dummy to add interaction to the old classic. This hack involves adding arcade buttons to a boxing dummy and interfacing it with a hacked NES controller. The tutorial details the various buttons placed on the dummy to control dodging and punches to the head and body.

You may also enjoy our other human-computer interaction projects:

• Outstanding Wearable Tech: The Sixth Sense
• How to Play Counter Strike, CoD, any PC Game with a Wiimote
• The Enicycle: A Self Balancing Electric UniCycle

You can actually control this robotic lawn mower by using the Wiimote’s accelerometer. Its creator says the concept could also be implemented on a range of different devices – you could actually take your grandmother for a walk by simply tilting the Wiimote, although she might not be very happy about it (brilliant concept though).

It can also be used on ‘automatic’ mode – walk the device to set a perimeter then let the GPS attached mow the lawn automatically without any effort on your part.� Good thing too since it moves so slow.

Here are some other cool projects that use the Wiimote:

• Fantastic Real Time Pan and Tilt Camera
• Foldable Display Tracking Using Wiimote
• Auto-aiming USB Missle Launcher

If you’ve ever tried to ride a unicycle, most people would agree it’s pretty much impossible. However, with the Enicycle, a motorized unicycle, it’s dirt simple and you can learn in less than 15 minutes. The video above walks you through how it was designed as well as the balancing and steering mechanisms. It has built in gyroscopes and accelerometers (learn how to use a wiimote as a cheap accelerometer) along with microcontrollers and a 100W motor.

Our other balance/segway projects:

• Incredible Balancing, Climbing and Jumping Robots
• Make a Mini Segway with the Arduino

“The mini gyroscopes measure the vertical angle of the bike at a rate of 100 times a second, then feed the data to the processor, which drives the motor and in turn keeps you balance. Sounds complicated? Well, all you have to know is that you just lean forward to go and steer with your feet. Easy. To see just how easy, check out the video” – Featured on Gadget Show.

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