Hardware Circuit & Breadboard Prototype
Wearable Glove & Joystick Assembly
GTA Gameplay & Motion Testing
Every controller assumes you have two free hands. Vex drops that assumption entirely. It is a wearable, single-hand controller fusing finger-contact sensors, an MPU6050 IMU for wrist tilt, and an analog joystick onto an ESP32, streaming over BLE as a standard HID gamepad with no app, dongle, or cloud.
How It Works & Technical Architecture
An ESP32 DevKit fuses three distinct inputs: an MPU6050 6-axis IMU on the wrist reads roll and pitch tilt for analog camera aim and steering, a 2-axis analog thumbstick controls locomotion, and conductive finger-contact sensors trigger button presses through touch combinations. Firmware samples ADC values in real time and streams directly over Bluetooth Low Energy as a standard HID gamepad with zero drivers or companion apps.
Engineering Challenges & Hardware Fixes
Flex sensor solder joints repeatedly broke under sharp knuckle creases, which we resolved by rerouting wires along wider bend curves and adding silicone strain-relief potting. We also tackled MPU6050 gyro drift by writing a C++ complementary filter with a boot-time resting calibration, and eliminated cross-host BLE thumbstick mapping glitches by normalizing HID descriptor packet reports.
Prototype Status & Next-Gen Roadmap
This is an early working prototype built to prove single-hand gesture control feasibility. We are actively planning a two-hand synchronized wearable system with expanded finger-permutation combos and enhanced mechanical durability for competitive gameplay.