Cardboard Mock-up of USB Joystick

For years now (literally years), I have been playing around with the idea of making a USB joystick.  You may have seen my previous experiment in building a throttle control.

I wanted to use a similar idea to the throttle, taking the angular motion of the handle and magnify it when applying it to the potentiometer.  e.g. move the handle through 45 degrees and the potentiometer gets moved through 90 degrees.

I also wanted it anchored at the rear, so I can build a mount to attach it to my computer chair.

In the video you can see a cardboard mock-up I made today. 

I'm amazed it worked at all, but it even provides a solid foundation for designing the proper plywood one.

The process of making a cardboard mock-up was really useful.  There were three fatal flaws in my sketch design which I would not have found out until I tried to make it:

1. Pushing the joystick left/right when it was already pulled full back makes it catch on the rear support.
2. The internal supports in the centre block would have stopped you pushing the joystick all the way forward.
3. The lower lever of the joystick needed to be extended to make sure the linking bar did not catch on the centre block itself.

All the necessary changes could be made ridiculously easily because all it meant was taking a craft knife to some more cardboard (which I have way too much of).

So now I've ordered a chuck and drill bits for my Dremel and some dowels so I can start making the real thing!