Yoke Completed

After two days of reliving my childhood moments with LEGO, my yoke assembly is finally complete. The handle buttons are fully functional and the handle can rotate smoothly.

Completed yoke handle attached to base

The thumb button on the left side of the handle is for shooting whereas the centre button is to start a new game. Each button is connected to two wires. In order to keep my design elegant, I have redirected the wires though the inside of the yoke handle and out of the back. A rear view of the handle is below.

Rear view of yoke handle - wires are fed through the inside

To detect rotation of the handle, so the player can move left and right, I have used a very simple method by just sticking on foil on the underside of the handle.

Underside of yoke handle

The two foil pieces are connected to wires which run alongside the rest of the wires inside of the handle. To complete the circuit, a foil piece will need to make contact with the base. The base has two contacts which "detect rotation".

The base component

The two contacts you can see on the base are simply LEGO pieces attached to the base and are wrapped in foil which will be connected to ground. The yoke handle attaches onto the base on the rotational joint at the top. The base is actually very sturdy and can hold the weight of the yoke handle.

The development of the yoke wasn't too difficult, but it was quite time consuming. I am happy with the result and I look forward to testing it next week.