I have been playing Kerbal Space Program on/off for a few years now, ever since the 0.23.5 update. The game came of out of Steam Early Access last year and the recent update 1.1 upgraded the game engine to Unity 5, improving the multi-threading of the physics processing. And so when we were coming up with ideas to do for MakerFaire 2016, I suggested building a custom KSP controller.

There already have been numerous projects done by others in the KSP community. These are documented across the KSP forums, and the KSP subreddit. These mainly involve integrating a joystick into a platform together with a few buttons and switches that are essential to flying a rocket in KSP. Ambrose, however, had not seen these, and designed what is essentially a command station with inspiration from the NASA mission control stations.

The overkill command station is born

The middle section holds a 27 inch monitor, joystick and buttons on the bottom panels, and more switches and lights on the top panel. Everything is hooked up to an Arduino Mega then to the computer. Every single switch and button essential for playing Kerbal Space Program is built into the station, even a toggle to switch it to docking mode.

KSP Command Station