How do you drive your robot?

[pathew100]

We used off-the-shelf PS2 controllers with a custom designed interface circuit. We won the Delphi Driving Tomorrow's Technology award at Wisconsin for this design.

Link to the White Paper.
Playstation 2 Adapter

[lukevanoort]

Lets see, we drive open loop like we stole it using two joysticks mostly. Our 2005 robot actually had PID, but it was not very good, and one of our drivers just turned it off and left it like that. This year's robot has some new code which allows switching between one and two stick control and will soon have an exponential control system, hopefully by the next meeting. (knock on wood, the meeting's Wednesday)

[Revan]

My Team 395, uses ONE Steering Wheel for turns and One Joystick for forward and backward movement; a great looking control broad

[Nita]

Two joysticks: One for driving and the other for all the other stuff the robot does, I believe (pretty sure that it's not tank drive).

[Ken Leedle]

Team 706 has used tank drive for every robot I know of. It is just what our drivers are used to. This year we actually made a decent control box for our shooter/conveyor mechanisms, but it was more of a hassle than just using another joystick. Depending on what we want to do after APs are over, we might make the PS2 controllers. Doesn't sound difficult.

[Gdeaver]

CH makes a whole line of industrial joy sticks and the ones I've used before were on a crane control. I really liked the feel. Little expensive and they need to be mounted in some kind of housing. Several of our team members have mentioned that they like PS2 controllers and may give them a try. I personally like to drive with thumbs on the joystick.

[CmptrGk]

716 uses the old flight sticks. with tank drive. and

LEFT_DRIVE_MOTORA = LEFT_DRIVE_MOTORB = p1_y;
RIGHT_DRIVE_MOTORA = RIGHT_DRIVE_MOTORB = p2_y;

oops, pwm != joystick. (lack of sleep)

[Nuttyman54]

We've traditionally used two joysticks and tank drive, but this year we got a nice Xbox steering wheel (excellent springiness) and switched to that. We love it, and it'll probably stay.

for the new white joysticks, it is possible to open them up and wind the springs tighter to get better spring, but this is risky (i know of one team that broke the joystick doing this)

[Ethulin]

This is gonna sound odd but we used all of the above!

Our roller/shooter opperator used a gamepad
Our driver used a steering wheel for left right, a joystick for forwards and backwards.

[Lil' Lavery]

116 has typically used a 2 joystick control system, with various switchs and knobs for the manipulator controls, but we have had some exceptions.
In 2001 we had a steering wheel for our base driver.
In 2003 we operated our short-lived forklift with a joystick.
In 2005 we operated our drive with only a single 3-axis joystick and our arm with a 2-axis joystick.
And I'm sure we have some other years I don't know about or have forgotten.

[razor95kds]

Every year we have used two joysticks for drive and and arm or box for added functions.

Next year we are using an XBOX 360 controller, every button works so just one driver is needed.