Driving using two controllers

[team3039]

First of all, congrats to Robonauts and its alliance for winning Bayou Regional 2013! We won the first match, and lost the second by two points, but you deserved to win the finals.

One thing I noticed about Robonauts is that they used two controllers on their driver station. Why is that? Is it used instead of a CCI or Cypress board?

[ablatner]

We use two Flightstick Pro joysticks with modified joysticks and buttons for driving and a Logitech gamepad for manipulating. Joysticks are good for driving because you can get a lot more precision than with tiny sticks on the controller. The controllers are good for manipulating because they have so many buttons.

[MrForbes]

Interesting, we use a gamepad for driving, and a joystick for "manipulating". I guess different teams see things differently.

[LeelandS]

Using two controllers is something I've been trying to push my team to do for a while now. The basic premise is that is splits up the tasks the driver has to do. While one focuses on driving, the other focuses on handling the special equipment (And 118 certainly has enough special equipment to go around).

Having two controllers helps takes the pressure off of a single driver. In addition, it doubles the number of buttons you have available to you for the numerous functions your robot has.