#HTE

Brilliant UI Redesign: Using 3D-Printed Flexures to Improve an Xbox Game Controller

This project is super-impressive, and I’ll go ahead and call this kid a genius. Akaki Kuumeri speaks Finnish, Japanese and English, works in business development for a security company in Tokyo, has a degree in engineering, flies drones and RC airplanes as a hobby and designs and sells 3D-printed puzzles on the side. He’s also what I’d call a natural-born industrial designer.

Kuumeri has perfectly mastered the art/science of 3D-printing flexures:

Coupled with his knowledge of remote piloting, he then designed and printed a joystick, a throttle lever and series of linkages that connect to an Xbox controller, providing a super-accurate UI for the Flight Simulator game:

I found it hilarious that he pronounces the filament acronyms as words, i.e. “plah.”

Another great application for this approach would be to enable those with disabilities, grip issues, etc. to play games or work controls that are currently too delicate for their capability level.

Kuumeri has posted the files for the gimbal component on Thingiverse, and sells some of the physical components of his system on Etsy.