A Simple DIY Game Controller For People With Physical Challenges

capedgirardeau writes "Caleb Kraft of the well-known Hack-A-Day site noticed that game controllers and alternate keyboards for people with physical challenges were very expensive. Simple switches for buttons that could be made for a few dollars were running $60 or $70 apiece. Working with a young man he knew who loves gaming and has muscular dystrophy, Caleb created a do-it-yourself controller for people with physical challenges using a 3-D printer, a super-cheap micro-controller board and some simple keyboard emulation software. He is freely releasing all the 3-D printer files and tutorials to make his and other controllers on a new site, The Controller Project. He also encourages people to check out The AbleGamers Foundation"

This is where...

[Darkness404]

Things like this is where 3D printing will be truly revolutionary. Many niche products are expensive because making them the traditional way requires a large amount of money to be put into making the initial molds and such, and although the price per unit when you're dealing with hundreds or thousands of units would be very cheap, they're cost-prohibitive in smaller runs.

Customization will be the killer feature of the future.

Use COTS first, custom-fill the gaps

[Mal-2]

I knew a girl born with an arm that ended just below the elbow, yet she was one of the deadliest Counterstrike players I ever saw. When I first saw her setup, she was using a large trackball in place of a mouse, as that was easy enough to operate without using her one hand -- except for the buttons. For that she had a SECOND trackball unit that had failed -- it didn't track any more so she had taken the ball out of it entirely and just used the buttons by putting it on the floor and pressing them with her toes.

Eventually I was able to rehabilitate the "dead" trackball unit (it was just really, really dirty more than anything) and made a switchboard more suitable for use by feet, with the usual left and right buttons, and a pair in the middle that acted like the scroll wheel. No longer did she have to take off her shoes to use them, nor sit in any particular posture. Though being able to feel the buttons was helpful for scrolling, socks or thin moccasins were now acceptable where they pretty much weren't before. Her dad didn't want me to tear up the new trackball so I hooked the switchboard up to the old one and she just kept them both attached like before, though it was no longer necessary to keep it under the desk.

A few months later, her brother spilled a drink on the modified trackball and managed to gum it up pretty good, so I had to move the switchboard port over to the new trackball. It was proven to her dad's satisfaction by that point though, so he was fine with that. To this day I suspect the little brother was just tired of always losing. I played hockey with him and he didn't handle losing very gracefully. (To be honest, neither did anyone else in that family.)

Anyhow, my first step in fitting someone up for custom hardware would be to see what off-the-shelf commodity hardware comes close to what they need, and tweak it as necessary from there. Also consider using limbs or input methods not normally used to operate a computer, such as pedals or a breath controller.