3D Printed Gamepad to Control Your Robots

thingiverse

This DIY 3D printed wireless gamepad is designed mainly for controlling an arm robot. It features two thumbsticks, each with four buttons located on the left, right, top, and bottom sides. Two more buttons are situated in the center and there's also a hole for a feedback LED. The necessary 3D printing parts include: * The outer frame and thumbstick eye-balls printed together as one object, * Two round buttons, * And two thumbstick handles. No support is required during printing, and assembly doesn't need any screws or glue. However, the most difficult part to print is the frame, which sometimes fuses with the thumbstick eye-balls. But it's achievable with a 0.2mm or 0.3mm layer height using ABS or PLA on a well-calibrated printer. If fusion occurs, slow down the printing speed and adjust the retraction setting. This writer successfully printed it in a customized Anet A8, so it shouldn't be hard to achieve with a better printer. The expected result is shown in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uetGYyZBsZk, although it's slightly tighter than the model from an early prototype. The .stl file includes all necessary objects in their correct orientation. For more information and the source code, visit: https://bit.ly/3dozdbH This project was developed under a research initiative at the Federal University of Jataí - GO in Brazil. The goal is to create very low-cost robots for educational activities in Brazilian public schools. Although there are many available gamepads and wireless controllers with high quality, buying several of them wasn't feasible due to budget constraints. By having students create their own gamepad in a maker lab, we aim to encourage them to pursue STEM careers.