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Up, down, left, right...Fire!
Gaming’s not what it used to be. There was a time when ‘up, down, left, right and fire’ were all you needed to blast space-craft in some top arcade action. Nowadays controllers have a whole host of buttons and sticks to make the characters perform their stunts; it’s all ‘left, left, hold X, press O, press R2, release X’ if you want to use your special moves or pull some insane tricks. The complexity may have increased, but the basic principle is the same – a combination of switches controlling the movement of an object.

Have you ever wondered how simple switches could be used to control the movement of an object?

You might like to …

• carry out some research to find out how switches can be used to control movement
• build your own simple robot and control its movement using a simple system of switches
• find out how to interface your switches into a PC, and use them to control the movement of an object around the screen
• design and make a base-less joystick (you could think about using mercury tilt switches which work from a wheelchair without a table to rest it on).

Further links: