The sensor is hooked up and I've done a few minor time trials. With the data collection feature, I'm able to automatically generate plots of various practice runs.

In the above graphic, I have two of my runs, plus one of my son's.

Total cost so far: $4.50 (I needed a socket for the connector, bought at Radio Shack). I had the rest of the parts at home, plus the reed sensor was sent by my dad ($1.50 or so, shipping).

Pepsi has chosen JDRF as one of three participants in the Pepsi Refresh Challenge, an online campaign to fund worthy non-profit projects that impact children nationally. Three charities are aligned with three National League Football League players. Until midnight tonight, people can vote on the NFL’s website (http://www.nfl.com/pepsirefresh) and via text message (text ‘MARK’ to PEPSI (73774) for one of those three players, with the player/charity receiving the most votes over the course of the week receiving a $100,000 grant.

For the internet bike racing project, I modified an old Gravis Gamepad Pro controller to have a stereo headphone jack connected to two of the buttons. The plan is to get a reed (magnetic) switch, connect it to the bicycle and have it tripped by a magnet on the rotating wheel. This then acts as if a button was pressed on the joystick, and signals the software to do some processing.

My newest project is a way to race other people with bike trainers on the internet. My goal is to have this as inexpensive as possible - hopefully under $10 or so. I'm not as concerned about fancy graphics or racing courses as much as "am I winning?", and having a reasonable price. So far, I have a simple C program that reads the joystick and calculates the time and distance traveled.

Not too fancy so far, but data collection seems pretty good.

Our Wii nunchuk broke. After disassembly, it was obvious that two of the wires in the connector end had broken off. I immediately did a search on the internet for information, and found useful diagrams at wiire.org. The problem I had was that the wire colors I had did not match the colors that they had posted. After disassembling both the controller and the connector, I mapped out the appropriate colors for my particular controller. If you have to repair your Wii Nunchuk, I suggest that you do the same to ensure that the wires are mapped to the correct pins. In particular, on the Wiire site, the red wire was connected to the +3V pin. However, on my controller, the red wire was connected to the clock line.

Wiimote Bus Pins (6-pin proprietary connector on Wiimote)

Looking into Wiimote (or at the exposed pins on the nunchuk connector):

• 1 (Red wire) - +3V - (Brown on my system)
• 2 (Yellow wire) - Clk (Blue on mine)
• 3 (Red wire) - Attachment detection? (No connection on mine)
• 4 (No wire) - Unknown (unconnected at Nunchuk connector) (No connection)
• 5 (Green wire) - Data - (Red on mine)
• 6 (White wire) - GND - (Yellow on mine)
• The shield wire (white on mine) was soldered to the metal housing.

Wiimote Bus Pins (linear connector on Nunchuk PCB)

• 1 (Red wire) - +3V - (Brown on mine)
• 2 (no wire) - N/C
• 3 (Yellow wire) - Clk - (Blue on mine)
• 4 (Green wire) - Data - (Red on mine)
• 5 (White wire) - GND - (Yellow on mine)
• 6 (Black wire) - Shield (GND) - (White on mine)

Note that the +3v was labeled on the controller board, and was the pin closest to the cable. Another way over verifying this is to note that pin 2 has no wire going to it.