How the heck do you use an XBOX360 controller with the chicklet??

[amateurrobotguy]

Hey, we are not playing GTA 4 here, we are DRIVING A ROBOT! If your game controller was SOOOO hot, then why wouldn't the military use it in a tank? Oh yeah, maybe a 1 millimeter thumb movement is not stable enough to drive $60 million worth of equipment? Or how bout why they don't use it in controlling autonomous planes? Hmmm, looks like they use joysticks too.

"Woops my thumb slipped and I dropped the floatie" will be common words.

I have grown up with game controllers, me and 95% of our team agrees that a joystick is far superior to a game controller. Like I said before, the game controller was designed to emulate a real joystick, so just use the joystick and stop thinking you are playing a video game.

[spsteam1512]

has anyone actually received the chicklet and is it working well with the xbox 360 controller?

[Mike Copioli]

Originally Posted by amateurrobotguy

If your game controller was SOOOO hot, then why wouldn't the military use it in a tank?

I'm curious to know where you are getting your information from?

Originally Posted by amateurrobotguy

Oh yeah, maybe a 1 millimeter thumb movement is not stable enough to drive $60 million worth of equipment?

1mm of movement? Have you actually used a game pad?

Originally Posted by amateurrobotguy

Or how bout why they don't use it in controlling autonomous planes? Hmmm, looks like they use joysticks too.

Again, were are you getting your "Facts" from? It makes sense to use a joystick to fly an autonomous plane. It is the closest thing to the controls in an actual military aircraft. Need I remind you a gamepad has two joysticks with, contrary to your opinion, almost an inch of travel.

I believe you have the right to develope your own opinion. I would suggest it be based on actual experience and facts.

[Thorcat]

A little off-topic, but could you use one of the new Xbox360 controllers for windows? I think this would be the coolest soloution, if only for a demo during a school assembly. Has anybody tried this, or is there some obvious reason that it can't work?

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by amateurrobotguy

Hey, we are not playing GTA 4 here, we are DRIVING A ROBOT! If your game controller was SOOOO hot, then why wouldn't the military use it in a tank? Oh yeah, maybe a 1 millimeter thumb movement is not stable enough to drive $60 million worth of equipment? Or how bout why they don't use it in controlling autonomous planes? Hmmm, looks like they use joysticks too.

"Woops my thumb slipped and I dropped the floatie" will be common words.

I have grown up with game controllers, me and 95% of our team agrees that a joystick is far superior to a game controller. Like I said before, the game controller was designed to emulate a real joystick, so just use the joystick and stop thinking you are playing a video game.

Well... your problem might be that you are basing your statements on speculation; Mike is basing his on something a little more concrete, like the facts.

I ordered chicklets on day one because my team was planning on hard wiring the xbox controller anyway, and this allowed us to use unmodified controllers which saves a lot of time, and also allows the process of finding a spare at a regional much easier.

All the kids on our team unanimously agreed that an xbox controller is more familiar to them than joysticks; The freedom of movement Mike mentioned would also be very beneficial. I figure if people can be uber snipers in Halo 2 and Call of Duty with it, why can't we drive a robot with it.

Also, if you have nothing positive to say about something Mike put so much hard work into (thank you mike, you allowed our electronics to spend time pursuing higher goals, rather than hours of repetitive yet easy soldering) then I ask you to simply stop posting in this thread.

Another thing that bothered me a little bit. They don't use joysticks to control autonomous planes; They wouldn't be autonomous then.

[Dills]

to answer the question of why use a 360 controller instead of a joystick, our robot has 3 degrees of freedom and a manipulator (which would otherwise take 3 joysticks)

[AdamHeard]

We calibrated the controller for our 2006 robot today and it was awesome to drive. It was much easier for my teammates and me to control than joysticks.

[Mike Copioli]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

We calibrated the controller for our 2006 robot today and it was awesome to drive. It was much easier for my teammates and me to control than joysticks.

That's good to hear. I'm glad to see someone posting feed back about the Chicklet.

[65_Xero_Huskie]

Originally Posted by eshteyn

Your right, but if your comfortable with the controller enough to a point where you can use it efficiently then my question is WHY NOT?

We hooked up our 2006 bot to the 360 controller and we found out that the joysticks were VERY touchy, and im sure you can fix this, but i think a regular joystick is better to maneuver around and should be your #1 choice for the robot to be driven.

[dcbrown]

Hooked up the chicklet to a shark xbox 360 controller - no joy in that it doesn't recognize it. Plugged in a microsoft xbox 360 and things were fine. The controls are touchy and the older 360 controller often didn't return to exactly neutral when released. Possibly a new one will have less issues. Our OI programmer is looking at doing some averaging/filtering to removes some of the glitches but other than that it seem to work ok. There certainly aren't as many steps in the output as there are with the larger joysticks. Didn't capture the data but I'll see if the OI programmer will do that and post the results. Seems to me that there were maybe 14-16 steps from neutral to full on which is at least a factor of 4x less than the full size joystick we used last year. Then again the driver probably used the first few steps for slow movement and then full on so its not like they actually USE all 64-80 steps available.

[Mike Copioli]

Originally Posted by dcbrown

Hooked up the chicklet to a shark xbox 360 controller - no joy in that it doesn't recognize it.

That device is not supported. Please see the list of supported devices in the user manual.

Originally Posted by dcbrown

The controls are touchy and the older 360 controller often didn't return to exactly neutral when released. Possibly a new one will have less issues.

No it won't. The X-box/360 controller is not the best selection for a gamepad. I suggest the Logitech. See my other posts on this subject.

Originally Posted by dcbrown

There certainly aren't as many steps in the output as there are with the larger joysticks. Seems to me that there were maybe 14-16 steps from neutral to full on which is at least a factor of 4x less than the full size joystick we used last year.

This is not the case. The chicklet has the same range as the analog joysticks. It has 127 steps in each direction. What you are probably experiencing is the sensitivity of the analog axes. Since a gamepads mechanical travel is over a shorter distance, it is more sensitive to input.

[Mike Copioli]

Originally Posted by 65_Xero_Huskie

We hooked up our 2006 bot to the 360 controller and we found out that the joysticks were VERY touchy, and im sure you can fix this, but i think a regular joystick is better to maneuver around and should be your #1 choice for the robot to be driven.

Again.....I can't say this enough. Try the Logitech Gamepad. The X-box 360 controller should not be your first choice for a gamepad. We supported it because of its global availability.

[65_Xero_Huskie]

Originally Posted by dcbrown

The controls are touchy and the older 360 controller often didn't return to exactly neutral when released. Possibly a new one will have less issues.

Same happened when we did it, but you can always put a deadband in there somewhere. And i agree with Mike that it should not be your number 1 option for driving the robot.

[dcbrown]

Not my choice, its student and driver choice. I'm just making the options available for them to choose from. Personally I'd never use the chicklet/controller combo but it isn't my choice and I really don't care what decision they make as long as it works for them.

Everyone is saying Xbox 360 controller - it must be a Microsoft Xbox 360 controller. I tried the game shark one, which works fine on an xbox 360 and is an xbox 360 controller, on the chicklet just to prove it had to be a microsoft one. I expect the inquiry or whatever string back from the device is being used to differentiate between supported/non-supported.

The joystick movement on the controller had a repeated jump of 4 -> 16 -> 24 -> ... with nothing inbetween. This is not the chicklet's problem obviously. However, of the three people who tried, none of us with the controller we had could hit anything between 4/16/24 stops no matter how much we tried or how slow we worked.

So far, the student have xbox 360 controllers for the team to try. No one has or has volunteered yet to bring in a Logitech gamepad device to try out.

[Mike Copioli]

Originally Posted by dcbrown

The joystick movement on the controller had a repeated jump of 4 -> 16 -> 24 -> ... with nothing inbetween.

Well the repetitive values could be coincidence, it's probably your controller. Think about this.

The joys on the controller have about 1 inch of travel from the tallest point. the total range is about 254 (+ or - 127) 1"/254 = .004" per data tick.

Value Inches of movement

4 .016"

16 .064"

24 .096"

No human can possibly make movements that precise.

You should try some of the joysticks that are supported. The Logitech attack 3 is very smooth, and provides greater physical resistance against movement.