Unique ways of controlling your robot (driving)

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by jtkellertx

We use one joystick.

Having mechanums, we can move in any direction. Being of the video game generation, I had it programmed like a helicopter. Forward is forward, back is back, left is a left straife, right is a right straife, twist left is a left rotation, twist right is a right rotation. It makes a bunch of intuitive sense. You can think of it as a helicoper or think of it as a first person shooter. We use a Saitek Avaitor USB joystick, attached to a USB chicklet. The top buttons are for the launch, arm pick up, and arm drop.

More techie description:
+Y = Forwards
-Y = Backwards
+X = Right Straife
-X = Left Straife
+Z = Right twist (right turn)
-Z = Left twist

We played around with this configuration the past two years with our omni-drive, but our drivers felt that it was "too much" for one hand. You would be trying to strafe when you inadvertently would twist the stick.

Stiffer springs in the joystick would have helped, but we moved onto a different control system that has helped our omni-drive bots win regionals in back-to-back years.

Left stick:
Y axis is forward/backward
X axis is turning (e.g. single stick drive with a skid-steer bot)

Right stick:
Y axis does nothing
X axis strafes

It seems unintuitive on paper, but if you have experience driving skid-steer bots with a single stick, it lets you transfer that knowledge while allowing you to strafe when needed.