I designed and printed 81 custom keycaps for the GameCube Keyboard Controller, then hacked it to work with Animal Crossing

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨hunterirving@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨3dprinting@lemmy.world⁩

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/9c4d60ca-bce8-4c26-999f-41dca8fc4d20.jpeg

I wanted to share this highly customized GameCube keyboard controller I built for use with Animal Crossing. Since the first AC game doesn’t support keyboard input, I used a Pi Pico to listen for keypresses and send simulated analog stick movements to the game, automating typing in Animal Crossing at a tool-assisted speedrun level. It works a treat! I designed the keycaps in FreeCAD and printed them on a Bambu P1P with an AMS and two different colors of PLA. The code and design files are available for free on GitHub.

And a full build/demonstration video is available here (I ended up making it do a lot more than just typing) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw8Alf_lolA

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wjrii@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Very cool. Gotta post this one to the mechanical keyboard communities too. Yes, yes, it looks like it’s a membrane under there, but this is one of the nicer sets of 3D printed keycaps that I’ve seen.

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- hunterirving@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Yeahhh, it’s a membrane keyboard. Though I have seen others gut the internals and replace them with mechanical switches. I’ll see if I can find some keyboard communites to share to - thanks for the idea!
  
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Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Equally impressed you dug up a nice looking crt.

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- hunterirving@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  $10 at a local thrift store! I used to see them everywhere, but this was the first I’ve seen in years…
  
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tehmics@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
How fast can you actually type on it before the game UI can’t keep up? Are you keeping some kind of input buffer to deal with that?

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- hunterirving@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Yep, it uses an input buffer. I ran some tests it seems to max out around 45wpm. If you type faster than that, the characters will still be added to the buffer and get processed, but you’ll eventually have to sit and wait for the movements to play out (at about 45wpm). For reference, my best rate unassisted (using a standard GameCube controller) was about 20wpm.
  
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  - tehmics@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    I just finished the video, that was incredible! Great job. I subscribed
    
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EK13@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Thanks for sharing! The keycaps are cool but the video demo was next level! Every time I thought that was surely all you could do with it, there was another, more impressive application.

Also when you were showing off the image creator I was surprised there was no reference to a certain 80s music video. Little did I know…

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- hunterirving@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Thanks so much for watching! In the beginning, I really thought it would just be the typing automation, but as time went on I had more and more ~~intrusive thoughts~~ ideas for features to add.
  
  I happen to be a big fan of that 80s music video :-) I think this was the third time it’s made an appearance on my YouTube channel.
  
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  - EK13@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    I actually ended up watching all your other videos too since they weren’t too long and I liked them all - definitely my kind of content! I thought the Labo stuff was especially cool so I’m looking forward to that next video you’re teasing!
    
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EffortlessEffluvium@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
That’s one w i d e controller!

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- hunterirving@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  It’s actually pretty comfortable though! Almost like playing Switch with split joycons.
  
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khannie@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
That video was amazing! Super work tbh.

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- hunterirving@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Thanks for watching! It was a lot of fun putting it all together.
  
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