Because Why Wouldn’t You Fly Drones With A Nintendo Power Glove

I can’t tell if this is an innovative use of technology or a really, really stubborn one.

Hackaday spotted something cool at the Bay Area Maker Faire recently: someone flying their AR Drone 2.0 with the Nintendo Power Glove. It wasn’t the original Power Glove, obviously: Nolan Moore had to replace the glove’s internals before he would be able to control the drone.

Inside the glove is a series of flex sensors for the fingers, a module for Wi-Fi support (which is what the AR Drone 2.0 uses), and an inertial measurement unit to detect the movement of his hand. Different movements send different responses to the drone, resulting in an aerial show that looks a bit like wizardry.

According to the Hackaday project page, the original keypad and status LED are still intact. There’s also an expansion port, but Nolan writes that “in classic Nintendo fashion [it] will never be utilised”.

“Down the line, I hope to have the Glove feature interchangeable wireless interfaces. The Wi-Fi module will be able to be replaced with a Bluetooth module, RC transmitter, IR transmitter or some other custom RF or USB HID dongle,” he said.

The full list of components is as follows:

1× Nintendo Power Glove
1× Teensy LC/3
1× ESP8266 Module
4× Flex Sensors
1× Pololu AltIMU-10 v4
1× Pololu 3.3V Step-Up/Step-Down Voltage Regulator (S7V8F3)
1× 2000 mAh LiPo OR USB battery pack

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You can read about how a Power Glove was converted into a drone commander over at Hackaday.