Reverse Engineering Project

Reverse Engineering Project - Jenna Nottingham with Sam Reyes, Olivia Rigali, and Aaron Morrill

Project: For this project, we were asked to dissect and redesign an object that one of our group members used for the Break It Apart project. We chose Olivia's Wii remote, also know as a Wii Mote, and gathered information on how all of the parts work and its design. We then decided that for our redesign were going to add a volume button directly onto the remote.

Purpose: On current Wii Remotes, to change the volume, you have to stop your game, go to the Home page, go to settings, adjust the volume from there, and then restart up your game, or you need a whole separate TV remote to change the volume from the TV. It is a long process and takes time from actually playing the game. Our purpose is to figure out how to add a volume button directly to the Wii remote rather than using a separate remote to change the volume or go deep into settings to do so.

Hypothesis: If a volume button is added to the remote, it will be more efficient and easy for the consumer to adjust the volume rather than changing it on the console.

Content:

Copy of Reverse Engineering Project

Content:

Tear Down:

  • Remove four tri wing screws that hold the two plastic housing pieces together

  • Separate two plastic housings

  • Remove membranes covering parts

  • Remove circuit boards

  • Take out buttons from the front piece plastic housing


Functional, Structural, and Material Analysis:

External Buttons

  • Power Button - turn on and off the remote

  • Directional Pad - move the cursor on the screen/used in games

  • ¨A” Button - used for certain games

  • Home Button - bring the user back to the home page

  • + and - Button - used for certain games/once in settings, to change the volume

  • ¨B¨ Button - used for certain games

  • 1 and 2 Button - used for certain games

  • Player Number LEDS - let the user know what player number they are


Internal Mechanics

  • Membrane switch contacts - under directional pad, the “A” button, and the 1 and 2 buttons, a type of electrical switch that's activated through touch and features at least one flexible substrate. Like other electrical switches, they are used to activate and deactivate circuits. When the player presses on the external button, it touches its membrane switch, which activates different circuits in the board to do different things.

  • Flash memory chip - Flash memory chips are electrically erasable, programmable, read-only memory (EEPROM) chips that can be erased and reprogrammed in blocks instead of one byte at a time. Typically, Flash memory chips are used in portable or compact devices such as digital cameras, cell phones, pagers, and scanners, or in this case, Wii remotes. It is used to store information for the Bluetooth controller in the remote

  • Miniature snap-action switches (aka Microswitches) - under the Home button, and the “+” and “-” button, A snap action switch is a mechanical switch that sends a rapid transfer of contacts from one position to another. Also known as micro switches, snap action switches can be momentary or maintained contact and come in subminiature, miniature, and standard styles. It connects to the rest of the remote and the console to tell it what to do

  • LEDs - Compared with conventional light sources that first convert electrical energy into heat, and then into light, LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) convert electrical energy directly into light, delivering efficient light generation with little-wasted electricity. The lights are connected to the remote and the console to tell the user what player number they are

  • Three axis linear accelerator ADXL330 - The Wiimote contains three linear accelerometers that measure acceleration along three pairwise orthogonal axes. The accelerometers can directly be used to measure the Wiimote's pitch and roll angles, by measuring the direction of gravity, and also form the basis for the gesture recognition used in many Wii games. It also senses the human motion on the remote

  • 10-bit A/D data converter- The main purpose of the A/D converters within a data acquisition system is to convert conditioned analog signals into a stream of digital data so that the data acquisition system can process them for display, storage, and analysis. It converts analog data from accelerometer to digital data that is then sent to the Wii console .

  • Bluetooth - Instead of sending out light signals, an RF remote transmits radio waves that correspond to the binary command for the button you're pushing. A radio receiver on the controlled device receives the signal and decodes it. Bluetooth is connected to all of the buttons in the remote to the console.

  • 4V 3300 uF capacitor - A capacitor is an electronic component that stores and releases electricity in a circuit. It also passes alternating current without passing direct current. A capacitor is an indispensable part of electronic equipment and is thus almost invariably used in an electronic circuit.In the Wii remote, it is backup power in case batteries temporarily disconnect.

  • Wiimote 6 pin connector - The 6 pin connector reports its information as 6 bytes of data, readable at 0xa40008 and streamable using Data Reporting Modes that include Extension bytes (unused bytes are filled with 0x00). The data is packed into the six bytes.

  • IR Camera - An infrared camera (also known as a thermal imager) detects and measures the infrared energy of objects. The camera converts that infrared data into an electronic image that shows the apparent surface temperature of the object being measured. Each temperature value is assigned a different color. The IR camera module (Figure 1b) in the Wiimote includes pre built-in image processing to detect up to four IR light sources with high speed (100 Hz), whereas most of the other cameras have a speed of 30 Hz, which may further down due to post-image processing. Moreover, the Wiimote camera is cost-effective compared to other high-resolution cameras.

  • Haptic (“rumble”) motor - The haptic motor uses a force feedback loop to manipulate the movement of the user and go beyond a simple vibration alert. The basic principle of a haptic sensor is the generation of an electric current that drives a response to create a vibration. This haptic motor has 3 wings, with copper wiring wrapping around each one like a cocoon. It is surrounded by a metal shell that spins around in order to create a vibration on the outer layer of the remote

  • EEPROM Memory chip - Flash memory chips are electrically erasable, programmable, read-only memory (EEPROM) chips that can be erased and reprogrammed in blocks instead of one byte at a time. Typically, Flash memory chips are used in portable or compact devices such as digital cameras, cell phones, pagers, and scanners, or in this case, Wii remotes. In the remote, it is used to store code for microcontrollers.

Materials:

  • The Wiimote structure is made entirely of plastic. The insides are made of different types of metals and covered in plastic to protect their circuits.



Reflection:

I think that this project was really fun. I think that my group did a good job at choosing a fun object to do, and I think that we did a good job researching, sketching, and writing about our Wii Mote. I also like that the majority of our group was engaged and willing to participate in the project in different ways, whether it was tear down, researching, sketching, making the report, or making and presenting the slide show. As a group, we were Critical Thinkers and Creative.

I think that if I were to do this project again, I would want to go further in how each of the materials are made. I also would want to make a slideshow more professional and with more detail. I think that if as a group more people picked up slack on parts of the project, we would be able to get more stuff done or in more detail. I think that this also would have been a fun, long term individual project, or in smaller groups like partners.