Nintendo Wireless Controller

I found an old Nintendo clone controller so I decided to see if I can make it communicate with a PC via bluetooth and emulate keyboard key commands. The setup proved rather difficult since there isn’t much space inside the controller for a battery, bluetooth module, a 3-axis gyro-accelerometer, Arduino Mini Pro, buttons, switch, a DC-DC converter and LOTS! of wires.

Once I had the controller setup, the real challenge was communicating with the computer. First I tried using Processing (processing.org) along with the Java Robot library. It worked well however, many programs/games did not respond to the simulated key strokes. Then I decided to try something I’ve done before, using a PS/2 to USB adapter along with the ps2dev.h library for Arduino. I’ve demonstrated another version of a game controller here: https://sourcelion.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/arduino-game-controller/ . However, in this example the controller was wired. This time, the design is a bit more complicated since it incorporates a bluetooth module and not a direct communication with the computer.

Here’s the result. I’ll add the source files once I’ve cleaned up the code.

Arduino Game Controller

Something I did a a few years ago; a game controller that uses an accelerometer and push buttons to emulate keyboard commands and can be used to play simpler games such as Need For Speed or other racing types.

The controller uses a .java application programmed in Processing (http://processing.org/) which simulates key strokes depending on the data received from the Arduino microcontroller. Later I was able to use an Arduino library (http://playground.arduino.cc/Main/PS2Keyboard) that eliminated the use of the Processing application. The controller became a plug-and-play type, without the need of additional software. I might post the code here soon.