I know this is highly subjective, but it would be interesting to see what joysticks you all like to use. Personally, I prefer a simple Xbox controller. It’s small, familiar, and has a lot of inputs (plus rumble for feedback).
I personally prefer an actual joystick or pair of joysticks. If you’re using any of the orthogonal drivetrains, having control of both directional and rotational movement on the same stick makes life really simple.
You know, we keep trying different joysticks, but the people who try them seem to inevitably fall back to the good ol’ Xbox controllers. We have Logitech gamepads and joysticks, and we have looked at pictures of many other models of joysticks that we could buy. In the end, we like the Xbox controllers because they offer so much flexibility: X-Y axes, lots of buttons, and analog triggers are good for variable speed intakes for example.
For this year’s robot we looked into using a throttle controller for driving the lift. The linear slider would make a lot of sense. But, the throttles we found didn’t have enough analog triggers, only button triggers. So, back to Xbox.
We are using a Razer Pro Xbox controller. It has 4 extra buttons that you can remap the ABXY buttons to, to give you better ergonomic control over robot functions.
I hope it’s better than the Razer sabertooth. We were extremely disappointed with ours. The deadzone was way worse than stock controllers and it ended up breaking on us way quicker than it should of even though we babied it.
Driving with an xbox 360 controller (or any controller with a long wire) is extremely beneficial in some years because it gives you the ability to move around at the driver station in order to get a better line of sight. I know last year for Steamworks I was able to walk all of the way to the corner of the driver station to see the human player station across the field without having the airship obstruct my view.
This was huge for us this year. We primarily played as an exchange bot this year at Heartland, and our camera made it pretty easy to line up with the exchange. Halfway through the competition, our camera died from mysterious circumstances. Being able to walk over to the inside part of the exchange to see our robot through the hole was extremely helpful.
1293 drove most of Smoky on Logitech gamepads, and no complaints. I’ve driven both Xbox 360 and Logitech gamepads, and I prefer the latter since I tend to prefer tank drive. But I also learned long ago to tolerate whatever the drivers want. 
I don’t know why, but we have a Thrustmaster in our robotics classroom. Should I unironically use it for next year?
Our favorite controller is the XBox One controller with taller analog sticks added. We have found these to have much smaller deadband than the normal XBox 360 controller, and we found the control of our robot degrades when using the Logitech controllers, though we have not spent time trying to understand why.
The only downside is the cable is not built in.
Moving to this controller and turning the exact response in code made a huge difference in controllability of our bot. I posted more about that in this thread here.
The Logitech Attack 3s were nice ambidextrous flightsticks, however they’ve been discontinued for a while now. The Logitech Extreme 3D Pro is a nice successor as a gaming stick, but the hand rest is for the right hand only, so it’s not great for tank or holonomic controls in FRC.
I may, at some point, attempt to model out a mod for an ambidextrous hand rest that could be 3D printed, but I would need to get ahold of the CAD first.
Only 90s kids will get this.
Those trim dials :mad:
Hands down the best Joystick for driving
We’ve used Xbox 360 controllers with FPS-style drive controls for the last two years (for/rev on one stick, turning on another). Our students love it and old drivers who grew up with the old-school flight sticks (including me) love it. Our novice drivers pick it up are are quickly performing fast and precise maneuvers.
I would encourage everyone to give this style of control a fair shot. It’s the best I’ve ever used among single-stick game pad, FPS game pad, single joystick, and tank joystick.
I’ve got to second this.
I too come from CH Flightstick tank only orthodoxy, but the times, they are a’changin. I hope I don’t invoke the wrath of the inquisition with my heresy against our serial port overlords.
I’ve only ever been on teams that have used the following:
2007-2010: Logitech Gamepad
2012-2018: Xbox Controller
Video game controllers seem to work very well in FRC. Being able to drive straight is a huge bonus of the ‘split-arcade’ system, as well as the ability to turn on a dime.
It’s gonna depend on your team’s drive style. Personally I prefer my driver to have the majority of the controls and only reserve the advanced and backup functionality for the operator so they can be free for strategic purposes. In that case a game pad like the Xbox controller is pretty much unmatched for the amount of controls that are accessible while your fingers are on the sticks.
This approach is best for games like 2013, 2014 where precision and controls should be fairly minimal. For more “pick and place” style games like this year offloading a large amount of controls to the operator and giving the drive a simpler controller like a joystick or a RC car remote can make a lot of sense.
Something I’ve been meaning to try is the awesome FrSky Taranis RC radios. They have a USB connection that allows it to appear as a plug’n’play game pad (and yes the wireless communications can be disabled). There was actually a team at Ryerson using this setup and it’s the go to in Battlebots.
It’s hard to beat the smooth hall effect gimbals of a good surface controller but the lack of accessible buttons worries me. FrSky is releasing a new radio this year with more of a gamepad style ergonomics and layout which might work out better.
I encountered a pair of these in competition use last weekend. The nostalgia was real…
Only for the sticks. Precision knocks anything we’ve tried outside of the park… we’re working on a custom controller using the taranis M9 Hall Effect gimbals for worlds.
971 has a custom R/C car style controller that looks pretty sweet as well.