30 March 2026 Prototype Review - Team 6

Our prototype is a two-handed flat-panel cardboard controller designed for Star Wars: Squadrons, built to put the player in the feeling of actually piloting a starfighter. The CPE sits at the center of the controller, and its built-in accelerometer handles left and right steering by tilting the whole controller side to side, no joystick needed. Thrust is handled by a thumbstick that controls forward and backward speed. We have four external buttons. Two handle primary fire, secondary fire, and the ones in the circuit playground buttons handle toggle targeting, and ship repair, while a switch on the right side activates sublight boost for a quick speed burst. During prototyping we learned that the potentiometers we originally planned for laser power and shield routing couldn't map cleanly to the in-game scroll wheel inputs the CPE can't replicate, so we cut them. The front/back shield transfer switch was also dropped for the same reason. In the final version we want to revisit those inputs with a different approach.

Peer Review Questions: What other controller styles or inputs do you think would work well for a space combat simulation like this? What do you think is the coolest part of the design so far?