Wireless Wii Nunchuk-to-Mouse USB Stick for PC, Mac, and Tablet Video Games

Ready to feel like the legendary "Bruce Lee" using Wireless Wii Nunchuks on a fun stickman kung fu PC fighting video game known as One Finger Death Punch (OFDP). How about playing Jetpack Joyride on Facebook or your Android Tablet? Maybe play a game of Symphony to actually play against your music in a video game? All this is possible with this 5 to 10 minute soldering project will allow you to use Wii Nunchuks (wired or wireless) based on an Arduino-compatible Pro Trinket and the Nunchucky interface board. You can create what amounts to a Wii Nunchuk-to-Mouse USB conversion stick that translates Wii Nunchuk responses into left and right mouse clicks for all types of mouse based games for computers and tablets. As a bonus, the joystick on the Wii Nunchuk is programmed to be used as a mouse cursor. Both wireless and wired Nunchuks can be used with this project. Best of all, no disassembling of the Wii nunchuks for this project is required. The nunchuks are completely powered and controlled from their original connectors with the Pro Trinket so you can reuse you Nunchuks for their original use once playing PC, Mac, and Tablet Games with them. In fact, if you want to use it to control PowerPoint slides after having some fun with games then go right ahead. This is a must build and try project to experience the fun you'll have using Wii Nunchuk controllers with all types of other games besides ones on the Wii. If you don't believe me, check out the video snippet above from a Mini Maker Faire using some wired blue third-party Wii Nunchuk controllers. Looks like someone is having fun to me!

Step 1: Gather Your Parts

All you need for this project is a Pro Trinket and a Nunchuky interface board from adafruit.com. In fact, besides soldering the Nunchuky interface board to the Pro Trinket, no other soldering is necessary making this a 5 to 10 minute soldering job and a great intro to soldering project for kids and adults learning about electronics. We have preprogrammed kits available so you can build this Wii Nunchuk-to-Mouse USB converter very quickly without having to worry about programming...just soldering! Anyway, the Wii Nunchuk-to-Mouse USB converter provides the interface for translating the Wii I2C signaling commands from the Nunchuk controller so that it looks like a USB mouse to the computer. The "Z" button on the Nunchuk translates into a left click button for the mouse and the "C" button on the Nunchuk translates into a right click button for the mouse. The joystick is used to move the mouse cursor on the screen.

At a minimum, all you need for this project is:

1. Soldering Iron and Solder
2. Wii Nunchuk Controller (wired or wireless)
3. Pro Trinket (we have preprogrammed versions)
4. Nunchucky Wii Nunchuk Interface Board
5. Micro-USB cable
6. 5 to 10 minutes of your time to solder the Nunchucky to the Pro Trinket

We offer items 3 to 5 in a Wii Nunchuk-to-Mouse USB interface kit to make completing this project easy.

For crazy fun with two nunchuck controllers, all you need for this project is:

1. Soldering Iron and Solder
2. 2 x Wii Nunchuk Controllers (wired or wireless)
3. 2 x Pro Trinkets (we have preprogrammed versions)
4. 2 x Nunchucky Wii Nunchuk Interface Boards
5. 2 x Micro-USB cables
6. 10 to 15 minutes of your time to solder the two Nunchucky interface boards to the Pro Trinkets

Step 2: Assemble and Solder

Transforming the Pro Trinket and nunchucky into a wireless USB mouse stick first begins by soldering the nunchucky to the Pro Trinket. The only soldering required for this entire project involves two steps:

1. Solder the 4 pin header to the Nunchucky
2. Solder the other end of the 4 pin header to the Pro Trinket. Before soldering the other end of the 4 pin header to the Pro Trinket make sure the Pro Trinket pins are connected to the Nunchucky based on Pin A2-->Gnd , Pin A3-->3.3v, Pin A4-->Data, and Pin A5 --> Clk

A picture of the nunchucky soldered to the Pro Trinket is shown above. It is important to make sure the Nunchucky interface board is soldered and oriented correctly with respect to the Pro Trinket.

Step 3: Programming Different Modes

We have designed two modes of operation for the Wii Nunchuk-to-Mouse USB conversion stick. One mode allows the right click and left click to correspond to the "Z" and "C" respectively. The other mode allows the right click and left click to correspond to the "C" and "Z" respectively. You can set the mode when initially connecting the Pro Trinket to the computer by holding down the "Z" or "C" button when initially connecting the Pro Trinket to your computer. Once setting the mode, it will remember the next time so you don't have to set it every time. We set up the two wireless Wii Nunchuks in our demo to operate in both modes so you can use the largest buttons on the Wii Nunchuk as both a left and right click for each respective nunchuk. The video in the next section shows how this enhances gameplay.

Step 4: Playing Different PC and Tablet Games With Wireless Wii Nunchuks

This section shows how the Wireless Wii Nunchuks are used with playing a variety of games via the Wii Nunchuk-to-Mouse USB conversion stick interface module. We used a tablet PC to run the OFDP game via Steam. We used an Android tablet to show how we played Jetpack Joyride and Canabalt endless runner games. We used a standard PC to play the Symphony Music game using a Wireless Wii Nunchuk with our USB conversion stick. These are just a few examples of how you can play video games on other platforms (PC and Android) using a Wireless Wii Nunchuk! Have fun exploring other video games and send me a Tweet @iTapArcade when you try out more games.