Modder Conjures A Raspberry Pi Magic Wand To Cast Spells In Hogwarts Legacy

A modder is enjoying casting spells by gesturing with a physical wireless wand peripheral in the new Hogwart’s Legacy game on PC. The ingenious project is described by its originator, Redditor / YouTuber / GitHubber That’s So Mo (who we will just call Mo from now on) via his social media channels. If you are interested in making your own wand, you will be happy to know that the setup, hardware, and software requirements are outlined in both textual (with links) and video formats. Key ingredients are a Kano Wand, a Raspberry Pi Zero W, some recorded gestures, and some scripting code.

Using a wireless wand to conjure spells is a sure way for any wizard, young or old, to crank up their immersion and pleasure levels when playing Hogwart’s Legacy. Mo thought there might be some kind of pre-existing Harry Potter-esque peripheral he could use to make his Hogwarts Legacy dreams reality, and he was correct. A quick Google search revealed that the GammaGames' Kano Wand was an educational Bluetooth wand device, that was readily available new ($99) and used (about $25), making it ideal for modding projects. Moreover, the Kano Wand includes an IMU sensor which can output its “surprisingly accurate” readings to a data file. Therefore, you can trace a multitude of wand gestures and copy and paste the movements into a gesture reading script, to invoke specific actions.

Next, it was important for the modder to consider how to get the wand to interact with devices and projects outside its intended use. Again, Google was helpful in showing a project where the Kano Wand was purposed to turn Christmas Tree lights on and off. Interestingly, this festive project used a Python script from GammaGames plus a Raspberry Pi. The wand developer’s GitHub includes a script that reads and records gestures.

The final key ingredient for Mo’s cauldron of technology was a tutorial showing how to convert a Raspberry Pi Zero into a USB keyboard. Since Hogwart’s Legacy on PC casts spells when you press a key (number keys by default) it is possible to record a gesture for a spell like The Disarming Charm (Expelliarmus), then save that gesture data, and allocate it to a specific number press on the Raspberry Pi Zero W ‘keyboard’. Thus, a little bit of wand training is required, but that is part of the fun of a project like this.