Wiimote’s Strap Put To The Test
- December 15th, 2006
- Read 1121 times
- 8 Comments
In that last couple weeks there have been numerous complaints about the sturdiness of the Wiimote’s strap and it’s tendency to break. Since the launch of the Wii, I’ve had more than three parties where gamers and non-gamers alike come together, drink lots of beer and play Wii. My friends aren’t exactly the type to be calm either, if you were to walk in to my apartment during one of these events, you could take a peek at pure minigame chaos. Yet, none of my Wiimote straps have been broken and no controllers have been thrown across the room. Once in a while the Wiimote will hit something (or someone) that is close to it, but that is entirely the users fault.
Nintendojo decided to take matters into its own hands and put the Wii strap to the test. The Wiimote strap was first tested while playing and “accidentally” letting the Wiimote go. Even when the user tried to purposely cause the strap to break off by letting the Wiimote go, the strap stayed intact. The second aspect that was measured was the detachable strength of the strap (how much the strap could hold without breaking off the Wiimote), check out the pics:
The strap held its ground even with 25 pounds of books and 100 fl oz of Mountain Fresh laundry detergent hanging from it. That is pretty damn tough. The only thing the tester at Nintendojo could do to break the strap was intentionally rip it out of the Wiimote using both hands. Now, doesn’t that help clear up the whole strap being “too weak” crap? I hope so. Just remember to keep the strap around your wrist at all times while playing, it’s your fault if you let the Wiimote go and don’t have the strap on and it decides to hit make a new hole in your wall.
Oh Snap! [nintendojo]
drdrew
2006-12-15 10:30:06
nothing like a controlled scientific experiment to put fears to rest. don’t know about you, but i know i’ll sleep better tonight…
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Jon
2006-12-15 10:44:29
No offense Raj, but I don’t the Wiimote straps’ problem was due to the inability to handle overall strengths, but rather whether it could handle a change from zero force to max force (ie from holding to slipping to wiimote flying out of my hand and OMG INTO THE F’ING TV).
You should test the Wiimote strap by holding a weight up so that the strap is loose, and then dropping the weight and seeing if the strap can hold the weight.
The reason why this is the case is because the strap is going to slowly stretch (and gaining what is called ‘elastic’ strength), rather than snap which comes from overloading the strength of the strap immediately (as opposed to slowly).
This is all from my experience from my mechanics of materials class though.
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Brooke
2006-12-15 11:11:27
Re: Jon
———
Bingo! Take an anecdotal fishing example. The line breaks more often when the fish make an unexpected run rather than when he’s putting up a consistent fight to the boat.
I’ve pulled up 60 lb waterlogged pieces of wood from the lake bottom on 25lb test line before. Slow and steady isn’t exactly the best indicator of load bearing capactiy.
Then again, look at how they test concrete integrity. They stick columns in the machine can applies extreme PSI’s but always over a slowly increasing rate. I wonder what would happen if the machine went from 0 to XXXXXX PSI over a fraction of a second rather than over minutes at a time. Maybe they conduct separate tests for elasticity! I am no scientist!
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Jon
2006-12-15 11:45:51
Blake:
When they test the integrity of materials in compression or elasticity tests, they are testing for something very key.
They don’t increase the PSI or pascals at a fixed rate, but rather they wish for the beam or test piece to change length at a fixed rate. So the test machines (Q-test machines) used are constantly monitoring how much the piece has stretched or shrunk and adjusts how much force it applies to ensure that is stretches or shrinks at a certain rate.
Thus you can plot a graph of how much the piece deformed (the percentage between the total length and the original length), and the force that is required to keep this deformation. The result is a stress-strain graph, and you can see the strengths and pros and cons of the materials. For instance, a lot of plastics will stretch a bunch before stretching, and the process of stretching (called plastic deformation, and thus we get the name “plastic”) gives the material additional strengths. However, other plastics, such as lexan or acrylics will simply shatter.
This is really cool how I know this stuff because of my materials class. It is weird though, because I never expected to go into an indepth conversation about it.
And the tests for compression/tension tests (which are called elasticity tests) are fairly similar, with one pulling and the other pushing.
Have at it Raj!
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Rob
2006-12-15 13:06:13
I hate to sound obnoxious but did any of you read the bit where he said that they firts tried to break the strap by
“playing and “accidentally” letting the Wiimote go. Even when the user tried to purposely cause the strap to break off by letting the Wiimote go, the strap stayed intact”
This would surely create a sudden force, and definately one that is likely to happen during gameplay, would it not?
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Jon
2006-12-15 13:42:25
Rob:
Yeah I think Blake and I both read that part. We’re just saying if you wanted to the test the maximum limits of the Wiimote strap using such a scientific and methodical method as the addition of weights slowly, why not actually do it in a manner that would actually test the Wiimote strap in the manner that it is actually used.
But good point, I guess Raj wasn’t trying to test the maximum sudden strength of the strap.
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drdrew
2006-12-15 14:51:23
Jon, i don’t think Raj had anything to do with it… those pics are from Nintendojo, hit the link above…
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Lydon
2006-12-15 17:22:27
I am in agreement. If they wanted to test the strength of the strap as a gameplay example, they should have applied the weight by dropping it (if just a couple of inches).
Then again,
“The only thing the tester at Nintendojo could do to break the strap was intentionally rip it out of the Wiimote using both hands.”
Doesn’t exactly make me feel better? Do they mean the WiiMote in one hand and the strap in the other just pulling them apart? Doesn’t seem like that would put many pounds of pressure on it.
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