Re: Drive style
 

772 was using an xbox controller at the begining of the season. But we switched to a joystick. We foun we had more control over the robot with a joystick. Also for the xbox controller we used the left thumbstick for forward/reverse movemnet and right thumstick for right/left movement, which isnt that great. With the joystick you can simply point in the directoon uou want your robot to go, an it will go there.

Re: Drive style
 

We have always used joysticks, usually the logitech extreme 3d pro. We like having more buttons and a greater area of motion for more precise control. This year, we also used the Saitek X52 throttle, normally used in flight simulation, for our shooter controller to give us precise power control.

Re: Drive style
 

We use a Steering wheel and a Joystick along with 254's Cheesy Drive code (Which makes a big difference).

We love it so far!

-RC

Re: Drive style
 

We got to use a Peregrine glove this year. It was cool, but not intuitive enough. We wound up switching to a joystick to control the arm.

Here it is.
http://www.theperegrine.com/product/
I'm sure that it would be amazing for PC gaming or a different FRC game (like last year's where our controls were much simpler).

Team 1649 had a tank drive and we used two joysticks for the wheels. On the joysticks we had three buttons one that made the robot reduce it's speed by 40 percent. Then the other two buttons were used to control our bridge manipulator. One button was use to lower the other to raise.
The second control system we had was a button box. We split the controls among two people so we can have two things happening at the same time. On the button box we had three buttons one for our ball intake, the second to reverse the ball intake, the last to control our kicker.

Re: Drive style
 

We've been looking into 254's "Cheesy Drive" recently. From what I hear, it offers great maneuverability combined with simple, user-friendly controls. It uses a steering wheel to turn, and buttons for turn-on-a-dime left and right turns.

Re: Drive style
 

It's just software, and doesn't necessitate the use of a steering wheel. It just wants a steering input (could be a joystick) and a throttle input. This could be mapped to a single x-y joystick, or more commonly split between two joysticks.

The main goal of it is remapping arcade drive to allow better turning while driving than normal.

Re: Drive style
 

Have you folks run both setups? (with and without a wheel) I saw 1323's at champs and they seem to love it. Are there distinct differences in effectiveness of the code between using sticks for steering or a wheel?

edit: also, what control interface was Cheesydrive originally intended for?

Thanks!

Re: Drive style
 

The current iteration of the "Cheesy Drive" system was developed in 2010 for both the two stick setup (which we have used recently) and the wheel setup (which 971 has used). The code development was driven by Austin Schuh, mentor for both 254 & 971 and 971's drive coach.

A lot of it is driver preference. From 2004-2008 we used a wheel and from 2009-present we have used two joysticks. I don't exactly remember the reason we switched. I find the two stick setup more intuitive but that's just me.

Re: Drive style
 

Ah okay, I figured it would be mostly driver preference. Thanks Nick.

Re: Drive style
 

I've seen lot's of good posts here about Joysticks vs. Gamepads, and other devices. I understand the pros and cons of both. I'd like to hear some opinions on what your favorite stick/gamepad/other device is and how you use it. For example, Do you use a stick with throttle or twist grip? If you use a button box, how many buttons does driver one or two typically end up using? Do you use special function switches? Potentiometers? Do you have a preference for different types of buttons or switches?

For us we tend to use Joysticks. (Logitech Attack 3's) We experimented with the Logitech F310 gamepad, but found our drivers tended to have better control with joysticks. We vary from arcade to tank style to drive the robot, but driver 1 seems to end up with two joysticks either way. We found that driver two generally has little use for the joystick so we went to a button box with arcade buttons that worked very well.