making a duel driver system

[Camren]

Hello guys im a rookie just completed my first year and next year i want to design and build a drivers station that will allow one driver and one manipulator and i want to wire a xbox controller for the manipulator is there anyone that can help me with maybe a link or there own schematics


Team 3081
Chief Engineer

[Vikesrock]

An Xbox 360 controller is a USB device, just plug it in.

[PriyankP]

We use two of these to control our robot; I think they have 12 buttons you can check. The driver controls the base of the robot and the minibot deployment system while the operator controls the arm and the pickup.

Programming wise, you need to declare two controllers (not sure if you guys are using WindRiver like us) but Joystick *driver; and Joystick *operator; are declared and motors are controlled based on inputs from these two controllers.

Is that enough information? Feel free to ask question!

[Mike AA]

In addition to what everyone else has said, we are required to use a laptop or simmilar device with ethernet port for the driver-station. You also have to run the labview driver-station software on said device.

Originally Posted by Camren

Hello guys im a rookie just completed my first year and next year i want to design and build a drivers station that will allow one driver and one manipulator and i want to wire a xbox controller for the manipulator is there anyone that can help me with maybe a link or there own schematics


Team 3081
Chief Engineer

[synth3tk]

Originally Posted by PriyankP

We use two of these to control our robot;

We use those (or ones close to those), too. Can't get any simpler: Plug them in, and you're ready to program.

As for Xbox, as Vikesrocks has mentioned, they're also USB. I've found some of the 3rd-party ones have issues being recognized by Windows/NetBeans/Labview (we've never used Windriver), so if you're going that route, your best bet is using one directly from Microsoft (because they made the OS, too. Ironic!).

[Techhexium]

Those gamepads PriyankP first mentioned are the same gamepads used to control the robot in FTC. They are useful for operation of the robot's features, but watch out for the analog sticks of the gamepads, they hardly ever cause the robot to stay still. The robot still creeps slowly when they become released so for the robot to really stop moving that needs to be programmed by creating a "dead zone".

[PriyankP]

Originally Posted by Techhexium

Those gamepads PriyankP first mentioned are the same gamepads used to control the robot in FTC. They are useful for operation of the robot's features, but watch out for the analog sticks of the gamepads, they hardly ever cause the robot to stay still. The robot still creeps slowly when they become released so for the robot to really stop moving that needs to be programmed by creating a "dead zone".

If that's a problem for you then you should buy new ones, our game pads from 2009 are doing the same thing. The ones that we purchased this year do that only when you really try to get them stuck close to 0, but even then the number is something insignificant like 0.0488..

[synth3tk]

Originally Posted by PriyankP

If that's a problem for you then you should buy new ones, our game pads from 2009 are doing the same thing. The ones that we purchased this year do that only when you really try to get them stuck close to 0, but even then the number is something insignificant like 0.0488..

There's no sense in buying new equipment when you can fix it with code, especially if money's tight for a team.