Our team is looking for a steering wheel to use for next year. We already took apart two old wheels for N64, only to find that they used some sort of optical encoder instead of a potentiometer.
For you teams with a steering wheel controller, what kind of wheel did you use? Or did you use some sort of clever hack, like mounting a potentiometer to the wheel? (we tried that, too)
I know 968 drove with a steering wheel last year. Maybe you can find out how they did it.
It is also possible to de-serialize a PS2 controller output into the OI, so that could be a possibility. Also, a company called Cross the Road Electronics is selling a device that will let you plug a USB HID Compatible wheel into the OI.
67 used a steering wheel in 2005.
I can’t remember the exact name of it, but it was a fairly cheap one for the playstation 2. It was blue, grey, and black. And if my memory serves me correct, it had a potentiometer that we just soldered leads to.
what you should do before you take the leap and spend the money is see if you can get another team which uses one, to loan it to you to try out. You may very well not like it.
Personally I’ve always driven with sticks, and I liked sticks because I had the benefit of tank drive, and individual side control.
But to each his own. 
Try before you buy.
IMO I feel you’ll wish you had sticks for independent control of each side a stick offers.
One of our team members donated an old wheel to us last year and it has worked wonderfully. It came with a potentiometer. After a short search on Ebay, it looks to be a Mad Catz MC2 Xbox Steering Wheel. Beware that the buttons on the wheel are analog buttons, but I wired them just like potentiometers and they have worked wonderfully.
Austin Schuh
I checked ebay, and the wheel that 67 used in 2005 was a MC2 MicroCon Racing Wheel for the PlayStation 2. They are pretty cheap and nearly ready, you only have to solder leads to the included potentiometer.
If programmed correctly a wheel can give you all the same control options as joysticks, It will just feel different.
I’m not exactly sure about using a steering wheel… the quick maneuvering changes one has to make when in a pushing match would be tough to pull off with the wheel. If youre using a wheel/caster or skid steer system, or any other system that has motor(s) on each side, I really would suggest just having a joystick for each.
The steering wheel would work if for some reason you chose to put turning wheels on the front of the robot, but like i say i’m just wondering if you can maneuver quickly enough with the wheel. I’m not questioning if you can do it, just the rate at which the driver can correct the path/power output of the robot might be a little sluggish. Anyhow, just my two bits.
-Q
I call shenanigans. The robot can be just as quick on its wheels with a steering wheel as it can with one or two joysticks–in each case, the OI is just reading potentiometers and sending the data to the RC to interpret. The challenge in any driver-OI setup is to make sure the driver can reliably and easily command the robot to do what he or she wants. If your driver thinks a wheel is the best way to go about it, go for it. If they want sticks, go for it. But I believe both are like the wheels-versus-treads debate: go with what works for you.
If you think this is the case, clearly you’ve not seen the many extremely manueverable robots that use wheels. It’s all about the implementation.
Hey Cory, might just be me, but I’m thinking that most of the maneuverable robots use wheels, they help you roll across the carpet a lot easier. 
btw - give you one guess as to where 668 got the idea to go to a steering wheel.
Team 1403 began using the steering wheel after Atlanta and we are very happy with the outcome. We are able to maneuver very quickly with the wheel, and we are able to make more precise movements with the wheel. I noticed teams like 254, whose driver is so quick with the steering wheel, dazzle us with their driving skills. I have also seen many teams who use joysticks who can do the same thing. But like some have already mentioned, it really comes down to what the driver is comfortable with on the field.
I will try to find the brand of steering wheel that we use. It turns out that the steering wheel we have already has a serial port. After a little bit of tweaking, we were able to make the wheel function exactly how we wanted it to.
I’m glad this topic was posted. Although I really think that joysticks are the way to go, my students this year feel very stongly about using a steering wheel. Although we haven’t purchased anything yet (we’ll wait for kickoff in case there is a change in the OI), we have started discussions of how to program the thing. It does pose some intersting challenges for the programmers.
As far as manuverability, I think that joysticks give more options while turning (tight turn radius/0 turn radius and so on). On the other hand, if the driver never makes use of all of the options available and can effectively drive using the steering wheel, then by all means go for it.
As Cory stated, you can do all these things and more with a steering wheel. It’s all about the implementation.
The robot has the same options for turning no matter what you go with–all you’re changing is how you tell the robot to do it.
Assume you have one joystick for throttle forwards and backwards, then one steering wheel to determine rate of rotation. Calculate the difference in PWM values needed given the position of the wheel, then add in the throttle values. Since this might throw the PWM values out of the valid range, add in some code to scale back the numbers until neither is over 254 (or below zero).
IANAP (I Am Not A Programmer), but this would be how I’d attack the problem for a basic drive system without feedback or anything–those folks who actually know what they’re talking about can elaborate there.
True. My initial impressions (while I was writting before) was that with the steering wheel it was more of an either/or proposition–I can either have a tight turn (ex. left wheels = 127, right wheels = 254) or 0 turn radius (left wheels = 0, right wheels = 254), but not both as would be possible with joysticks.
Further thought on the matter has led me to an implimentation that would allow both–I guess I just like joysticks because with a rookie team that only has 1 programmer (and she has no previous programming experience), I’ll probably end up writting most of the code this year and joysticks are easy to implement.
DISCLAIMER: I have never tried this
I think if you used the one joystick drive setup in the default code and just used the steering wheel’s output instead of ‘p1_x’ and used the throttle joystick’s y value in the place of ‘p1_y’ it would work.
You could always have a button on the steering wheel or a switch to change drive modes.
Now that I think about it, this is exactly what the one-joystick code does. BRILLIANT!