[KenWittlief]

with all things in FIRST, start with the directions.

The new edu controller is not designed to have a joystick connect to it directly. It is designed to have a Radio Control (model car or boat) receiver connected to its PWM inputs.

PWM stands for Pulse Width Modulated. When a command is received from the transmitter (based on where the joysticks are being pushed) a pulse is output on the PWM connectors that is somewhere between mostly on and mostly off. I dont know the exact timing off the top of my head.

If you wanted to make a joystick to PWM input circuit, you would have to use a microprocessor to read the analog values of the joystick, and convert that into a pulse width modulated signal.

Or there is a way to connect the joysick to the EDU controller, but its not what you would normally think of doing with a joystick - you could connect it to the analog inputs, supplying 5V from the analog input connector to the joystick, and using the output as a variable voltage.

This would be easier to do, and your RC software could then read the joystick inputs on the analog input ports. Normally those ports are used for other types of sensors, the yaw rate sensor, a potentiometer, a custom circuit...

The details on how to do that are in the 2004 EDU robot controller reference guide, page 9 - hooking a potentiometer to the analog inputs. The joystick contains two potentiometers inside, one for each axis