Much has been made of thos controller thing and I think it's getting overblown. I can not speak authoritatively on the safety of the sub or the whole operation but I am aware that off the shelf video game controllers are used for a lot of things including even military vehicles. It's a good controlling device for many things. Yeh it probably looks a little worrying when you step in to something being manoeuvered by a videogame controller, it's not good vibes or optics but, it's not itself a reliable signifier of anything really.
this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
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Yeah, if they had not used an off the shelf part, then people would make fun of the janky controls with "levers and pulleys." The thing is a simple control scheme that's well understood and easy to learn. It gives inputs to an onboard computer which interprets pilot intent and steers the vessel (how ever questionable the vessel's construction might be).
Game controllers are used for all kinds of robots and vessels (often remote controlled) - so the fact they chose a controller does not weird me out at all.
Do I think they could have gotten a better quality controller? Yea, sure. Do I think maybe a wired controller would have been better? My gut says yes, but I don't know their decision making process and the engineering challenges with running cables.
And it was probably the best built component of the entire sub
That is one of the least concerning parts of this lol, at least Logitech makes quality peripherals. If I had to choose a single manufacturer for input devices, it'd probably be them.
I don't see any issues with this as long as they had several fail-safes in case of hardware malfunction. US military subs us Xbox controllers because it's what people are comfortable with.
The US Navy uses game controllers to control their parascope.
I’ve seen a video of US Navy using an Xbox controller (arguably for experimental weapon iirc but still). If it just works why overengineer it? I would be more concerned about that hull (scuttlebutt says it was just carbon over titanium frame, not titanium hull overlayed with carbon). However I guess we will have to wait until they find the boat to know the reason for failure.
Never mind the games controller. They bolt u in from the outside?! I'd never survive the panic attack
The submarine seems to have only one button for on/off... Did they think they can connect to iTunes there in case of some boot issues?
Hope they downloaded all the music to play offline
This is an interesting article that makes some good points. Why re-invent the wheel and potentially make something unnecessarily complicated and less reliable when simple items with simple electronics often have less that could go wrong?
I think most people are roasting their choice of game controller. The cheapo Logitech model. Plus if they wanted simple and reliable I would think a wired version would be better, not the wireless model. The military is all the time using them for controlling UAVs and stuff in the field. Nobody really pokes fun because it doesn't look like the cheap controller you'd hand off to "player 2".
Should have used a Xbox 360 controller
They could've done a 360 and walked away....
If they did a 360, they'd still be walking forward...