Xbox 360 Wireless controllers?

[Shaun Coon]

Are Xbox 360 wireless controllers allowed?? or do they have to be wired controllers?

[sometimestommy]

Personally I would used wired because you're going to get a faster response time. Also, xbox controllers use a variant of WIFI to transmit joystick/button data which may or may not mess with the field/

[Shaun Coon]

its uses some sort of radio signal not wifi or bluetooth. So is it legal or will it cause problems?

[lemiant]

keep in mind that you need the $100+ receiver to use the wireless controllers with with your computer.
Combine that with the increased risk of lag or dropping connection and I'd say it's not worthwhile to use a wireless controller. However, I do not know of any rules prohibiting it. maybe q&a it.

[Shaun Coon]

if you go to best buy and go to the computer section you can get it with a controller for under $60 i just bought one for my PC.

[Shaun Coon]

and you can use up to 4 controllers with it supposedly.

[Shaun Coon]

can you post a link please

[Jon Stratis]

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...c/game-q-and-a

[jwfoss]

I would suggest the Logitech F310 instead.

They are realitively cheap, wired (usb), and in our experience a better option for a gamepad for FRC use.

[Shaun Coon]

thanks i will do that!

[Lightfoot26]

...and if you want wireless for mobility in the DS... I suggest what we did last year.... 15 foot USB extension cable. It used to be in my wall for a home theater setup I pulled it out and we used it on the Driver Station. 2 bucks on Newegg!

[Justin Montois]

I'm unsure of their legality but I would recommend against using wireless controllers. While at competition, you should limit the number of things that you have to worry about, you don't want to have to worry about making sure your controller is charged. Murphys law says that it will die at the worst possible time. Used wired ones.

[Jon Stratis]

I can't find a rule that would directly prohibit them on the operator console, so long as they communicated only with the driver station. Some related rules:

Section 4.3.1 (Events section of the Administrative Manual)

Teams are not allowed to set up their own 802.11a/b/g/n (2.4GHz or 5GHz) wireless communication (access points or ad-hoc networks) in the venue

R55

One D-Link DAP-1522 is the only permitted device for communicating to and from the Robot during the match. All signals must originate from the Operator Console and be transmitted to the Robot via the official Arena hardware. No other form of wireless communications shall be used to communicate to, from or within the Robot (e.g. radio modems from previous FIRST competitions and Bluetooth devices are not permitted on the Robot during competition).

The intent of limiting wireless communications is to help ensure proper field to robot communication. An excess of wireless usage will cause communication problems, which might negatively impact your team or those around you. I would strongly urge you to use a wired controller in order to avoid any potential issues a wireless one might cause.

Since the intent and the letter of the rules here seems to be at odds, you should use the Q&A to ask the GDC if you want to go forward with it. Make sure you stress that the communication would be between the controller and the Driver Station, so they don't just point you to R55.