I’m sure you all remember that awesome scene in the movie The Wizard where our hero, a simple kid who yells out “California” where ever he goes, comes in contact with Lucas, one of the most bad ass video gamers out there.  Lucas showed us a new peripheral from the master of all things video games   known as the POWERGLOVE. Yes he played the balls out of some racing game (I can’t remember which one right now) with no mistakes what so ever.

Truth be told there were nothing but problems with the POWERGLOVE, you needed three giant senors the size of most babies heads, that wrapped around the size of the screen so it could pick up the infrared diode in the glove. The second thing you needed was patience, and the will power to prevent yourself from chucking the thing across your room in a fit of rage because the thing never worked a damn as you first saw in the movie.

Well, its 20 years later and Matt Mechtley who surprisingly never tossed his glove into a fire place, was able to crack it open and give it one of the best face lifts ever to grace a classic Nintendo peripheral.  Over the past month, Matt stripped the guts out of an original POWERGLOVE, replaced the ultrasonic sensors with an accelerometer, the proprietary microcontroller with an open-source Arduino, and the wired connection with Bluetooth. And what is he doing with it now, working on a boxing game for the iPhone. Sure cool idea, but come on man, think bigger, think PC, think Wii, think of everything else out there that could benefit from this marvel of technology.

On his website, he actually shows you how it works and how you, thats right, you the reader can make your very own POWERGLOVE for the modern times if it’s still all in one piece.

Check out his website here and enjoy.