A custom game controller [Resources]

I was getting tired of dinging the International Space Station-not in reality, of course, but in the fantastically detailed (and free) spaceflight simulator Orbiter. Unlike most spacecraft games, Orbiter tries for as much physical realism as possible, including the need for considerable finesse when docking a spaceship at the ISS's air lock. Unfortunately, the keyboard controls are not particularly intuitive, and most joysticks and other game controllers are designed with airplanes, cars, or avatars in mind, not spacecraft. So I decided to build my own controller. The task was made much easier thanks to the release last summer of a new version of the popular Arduino microcontroller. The US $25 Arduino Leonardo can mimic a USB keyboard or mouse, sending keystrokes or mouse movements to a computer in response to circuitry hooked up to the microcontroller.