Volt Cruelerz
Legions Developer
<rant>You see, I'm the designated driver for my robotics team (Vex, if you are curious). Our team consists of myself, my girlfriend, a friend of mine and his girlfriend who is also my girlfriend's best friend. My friend and I are the ones who built it and my girlfriend and I program it. My gf's bf [best friend, not boyfriend in this context as that would simply be me] is typically the messenger and she runs various errands and helps some with construction.
The other three of us are definitive nerds. She's not. She does not play any video games that require a proper controller (anything aside from the wii) unless her boyfriend convinces her to play something with him. I programmed the controller to be just like any video game ever in which you move a vehicle. Analog sticks control the wheels, left bumpers control the primary auxiliary motion and right bumpers control secondary auxiliary motion. The left d-pad controls tertiary motion (because I'm left handed, though I won't be there when we have another random competition so I'll switch it to the right d-pad so that the backup driver will be able to use it properly).
Today, as a fund raiser for our trip to the international competition, we had a mock competition and dinner for anyone who wanted to come. Since it was just a mock competition, she said she wanted to try driving it. My friend and I exchange worried looks but eventually, he concedes. I hand her the controller and try to explain the controls. She doesn't understand any of it.
I tell her that the analog sticks move the thing. She doesn't understand the concept of tank drive (that is, one analog controls the left wheels while the other controls the right wheels). I try explaining that. Her response is that she thinks that it would be better if she could just drive with the bumpers and both the ups on the d-pads. Forward would be accomplished in this system by pressing both the ups down and turning would be done by pressing the bumpers, leaving the analog sticks unused and the user incapable of simultaneously driving and manipulating field objects for score.
I tried explaining that to her. She didn't care. She didn't see how anyone would ever want to use their index fingers and thumbs at the same time. I told her that you'd lose if you didn't do both. She didn't listen. She just said that her way was the only way that it would ever make sense. I ask why. She simply says that it's stupid for you to want to use the bumpers to do anything other than turning. I respond by saying that this is the way it is in virtually every game. She says she's never played a game like that. I tell her that's because she doesn't play video games. She doesn't care. She keeps going on about how the standard is stupid until eventually I drop the subject out of annoyance.
Later, our instructor asked if she wanted to drive it for one of that mock matches. I told him that we wanted the robot to stay in one piece. She said she wanted to drive it and did so. After a few seconds, it became obvious that she didn't remember my directions from earlier. I tried helping her, telling her which buttons to push and gave her four things to never do that would break the robot. She managed to do all four within the next [two-minute] match and it took me hours and hours to find these improper operations of the robot. When I start trying to tell her not to hit any more buttons, lest it get worse, she ignores me and panics and starts mashing random buttons. Eventually, the match ends and she stops [thankfully] and I get to spend a good chunk over the next week fixing a robot that was at the point of being nearly complete. Ugh...
</rant>
The other three of us are definitive nerds. She's not. She does not play any video games that require a proper controller (anything aside from the wii) unless her boyfriend convinces her to play something with him. I programmed the controller to be just like any video game ever in which you move a vehicle. Analog sticks control the wheels, left bumpers control the primary auxiliary motion and right bumpers control secondary auxiliary motion. The left d-pad controls tertiary motion (because I'm left handed, though I won't be there when we have another random competition so I'll switch it to the right d-pad so that the backup driver will be able to use it properly).
Today, as a fund raiser for our trip to the international competition, we had a mock competition and dinner for anyone who wanted to come. Since it was just a mock competition, she said she wanted to try driving it. My friend and I exchange worried looks but eventually, he concedes. I hand her the controller and try to explain the controls. She doesn't understand any of it.
I tell her that the analog sticks move the thing. She doesn't understand the concept of tank drive (that is, one analog controls the left wheels while the other controls the right wheels). I try explaining that. Her response is that she thinks that it would be better if she could just drive with the bumpers and both the ups on the d-pads. Forward would be accomplished in this system by pressing both the ups down and turning would be done by pressing the bumpers, leaving the analog sticks unused and the user incapable of simultaneously driving and manipulating field objects for score.
I tried explaining that to her. She didn't care. She didn't see how anyone would ever want to use their index fingers and thumbs at the same time. I told her that you'd lose if you didn't do both. She didn't listen. She just said that her way was the only way that it would ever make sense. I ask why. She simply says that it's stupid for you to want to use the bumpers to do anything other than turning. I respond by saying that this is the way it is in virtually every game. She says she's never played a game like that. I tell her that's because she doesn't play video games. She doesn't care. She keeps going on about how the standard is stupid until eventually I drop the subject out of annoyance.
Later, our instructor asked if she wanted to drive it for one of that mock matches. I told him that we wanted the robot to stay in one piece. She said she wanted to drive it and did so. After a few seconds, it became obvious that she didn't remember my directions from earlier. I tried helping her, telling her which buttons to push and gave her four things to never do that would break the robot. She managed to do all four within the next [two-minute] match and it took me hours and hours to find these improper operations of the robot. When I start trying to tell her not to hit any more buttons, lest it get worse, she ignores me and panics and starts mashing random buttons. Eventually, the match ends and she stops [thankfully] and I get to spend a good chunk over the next week fixing a robot that was at the point of being nearly complete. Ugh...
</rant>
