PocketWheel

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  Mobile Interface

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  Edit Layout

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  PocketWheel Dual Players + Wheelbase

Inspiration

One of our teammates loves playing BeamNG and wanted a true steering wheel experience while staying portable. Instead of a bulky rig that you can't carry anywhere, we turned an everyday device we always have on us, the mobile phone, into a portable steering controller.

What it does

PocketWheel converts your mobile phone into a portable steering wheel. By either holding the phone, or, optionally, mounting the phone to a wheelbase and tracking its movement, it acts as a fully capable wheel that works seamlessly across multiple racing simulators.

How we built it

Hardware: Designed a custom phone mount in CAD and integrated a motor to generate realistic force feedback. Software: Used Claude Code to generate our base structure, then scaled it up by scraping official package documentation to add advanced features.

Challenges we ran into

Getting stable cross-platform compatibility across various Android models and debugging wireless connection issues to eliminate input latency.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Building a fully functional steering app and hardware setup from nothing that syncs real-time mobile data with mechanical force feedback like any other sim racing wheel without the bothersome of carrying a whole setyp.

What we learned

Mobile phones has many things inside that could be used for thousands of different movement to game ideas.

What's next for PocketWheel

• expand to support a wider variety of sim racing sims.

Built With

• bambu
• css
• elegoo
• javascript
• onshape
• python
• vscode