#MakerMonday: Use an Xbox One Controller to Drive Sphero

Drive Sphero with JavaScript and node.js

#MakerMonday is a weekly highlight of cool things being made with Sphero products. Makers love Sphero, and vice versa. There are tons of Sphero and Ollie projects floating around on the web, and we want to highlight some of our favorites.

Maker: Tony Carmalitano, Student

Sure, the Sphero apps are awesome. But wouldn’t it be cool to put those hard-won video game controller reflexes to work? Tony Carmalitano thought so, and he built this cool Sphero Drive project to try it. He spent about six weeks on the project, managing to make keyboard control work, but the Xbox One controller proved finicky.

Get involved! Grab Tony’s code (link) and try using a standard USB controller, or create a node.js library to help the XBox One controller talk to the PC. We’ve seen other projects work well with an inexpensive USB gaming controller.

Kudos to Tony for his work on the project! It’s in JavaScript, and you can see a cool video demo at hackster.io ( download the code and try it yourself!)

Image from Tony’s project at hackster.io.