Upgrade your flight sim setup with Tom Stanton’s floor-mounted joystick

Most joysticks sit on your desktop, allowing you to control flight sims and other such games with a bit more realism than a keyboard and mouse. YouTuber Tom Stanton, however, decided to take things to the next level by creating one that pivots from the floor out of aluminum extrusion and 3D-printed parts.

The device’s main control stick attaches the base via a ball bearing pivot system, using Hall effect sensors to detect its relatively limited rotational distance. Foot pedals are also implemented with a Hall effect sensor setup, and a throttle/switch/button interface is presented to the user by another extrusion section. The build interfaces with a computer using an Arduino Micro and the Arduino Joystick Library.

Code for the project is available on GitHub, while print files can be found on Thingiverse if you’d like to make your own!