As part of our getting started with using a MPU6050 IMU module, we devised a way to wirelessly send data about the IMU over bluetooth. The end result is we were able to build a wireless wand which can potentially control objects on a computer or in real world by the twist of the hand.

Here is a video of the wand in action before it was painted. Enjoy!

Step 1: Casing, Wiring and Fitting

We used a 1.5" PVC pipe as the body of the wand, and two end caps to enclose everything, plus give us a surface to mount a light and a switch.

The IMU connects to an Arduino Nano over the i2c lines (SCL,SDA) and uses the pin 2 for interrupts. The HC-05 Module connects to the arduino over the RX/Tx lines. a 9V battery provides plenty of juice for a lot of demos.

The images above show how we were able to manage to fit everything inside the pipe.

The code for the demo is from the examples itself. You can access the github repo here https://github.com/jrowberg/i2cdevlib/tree/master/...

The software running on the computer is called Processing, which can be downloaded from the web. A PDE file is present in the DMP folder of the examples, which expects to connect over wired serial connection at 115200 bps.

We used a standard bluetooth dongle, paired with the bluetooth in the wand, and a serial port magically arrived. The code for processing picks up this serial port and everything worked out of the box.