Creating a Foot Joystick for the Xbox Adaptive Controller

So my son had a stroke shortly after birth. This has left him with rather reduced mobility on the right side of his body. He loves video games though, but his disability decreased his choices leaving him with a very limited subset of games on the Xbox or PC. He became awesome using a controller one handed. He would use his pinky on one joystick and thumb on the other to move around but had to stop to press buttons or other such actions.

So when Microsoft announced the Xbox Adaptive Controller, my wife and I were way excited for him. We got him one along with various buttons and joysticks to make it work. It is more of a hub then a controller, allowing you to use whatever adaptive components. Many of those components are expensive, but we got the following items:

• One handed Joystick - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/pdp-one-handed-joystick-for-xbox-adaptive-controller/8qhw8mlwpp1l/3sqh
• 3dRudder Foot Motion Controller - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/3drudder-foot-controller/90lh5fwnx6t8/lbxg

The one handed joystick he would hold and could control one of the joysticks (view for my son). The 3dRudder controller would then be mapped to the other joystick (movement). 

The biggest struggle we quickly learned with the 3d Rudder motion controller is that a person really needs two functional feet to help control it's rocking motion. It acts similar to a balance board. To move forward the player leans their feet forward to press the front down. To go right they have to push their right foot down. My son can't get that finer grained movement on his right foot. He would tend to push with his left foot, causing his character to move left, but then never had the strength to move it right again. Overall the design worked poorly.

The reality is he has one functioning foot that he can control rather well. So we thought that we needed to get a foot joystick instead that he could control with his left foot. In unrelated news we got a 3d printer for Christmas (Thanks Santa!), and a micrometer for helping to take measurements down to the millimeter. After we got these, we decided I should get another one-handed joystick and convert it to a foot joystick.

The one handed joysticks are nice and very affordable at $20 a piece. At first I thought I would just create a holder that would not involve modifying the joystick. But as you can see from the image on the right, that wouldn't work all too well. So after getting put on work-from-home, which saved my commute and reduced overtime requirements, this idea rose back to the top of my priority list.

Here is how I did it. 

The first step is pulling the joystick apart. This involves taking out a screw from the bottom of the joystick. Once it is out then press on the side in the gap between the two parts. This should cause it to pop a little and open slightly. You can use a flat head screw driver and twist it a little in the gap to force it open. You are not keeping the body, so you don't have to be too careful. Then unscrew two small screws right below the joystick connecting the board to the black joystick housing. After your done then you end up the pieces you see in the image to the left.

I didn't want the front buttons as I figured he would just be moving with his foot and having to pull it off would slow him down, so they had to go. Luckily there are only three cables coming from that circuit board for the buttons connecting it to the main board. I pulled out my soldering gun, heated up the solder, and pulled the cables out one by one. That left me with only the board, which is exactly what I wanted. I plugged it into the Xbox Adaptive controller and made sure it still worked. I was pretty sure it would, but didn't want to spend much time on this if it didn't.

The next phase involved me taking measurements of the sides, length + cord to the gasket portion. Also getting the height. Then I opened 3d builder which is free with Windows 10 as part of Microsoft's "Creators" push a while back. I have found for the basics I use it for it works great. I created the following prototype. The top of the image is the front of the of the controller housing. The back has the cutout for the cord. It involved a ring around it to catch the sides of the board and support them. The two smaller cylinders will serve as the screw posts to secure the board to the plastic. That larger middle cylinder would go through the middle hole in the board. 

After printing this out I realized some adjustments were needed. I wanted another larger cylinder that would support under the joystick so it could be clicked more comfortably. Also around the other cylinders I added a ridge to support the board for it to rest on as it was just being pushed on them. Then I heightened the middle of the cylinders to the height of  the top of the board for a good fit. Also I extended out the bottom of the board to allow me to fit the cord with the gasket on the inside so that it would almost look like the cord did in the old controller.

After printing out the second rendition I ended up with this. Everything actually fit perfectly. I was pretty happy with this as I figured  would need more revisions to this part. I didn't put holes in the two smaller cylinders to allow for the mounting screws to be re-added. So I heated up a needle with a match and pushed it through the middle of both cylinders. I then replaced the board on the cylinders and was able to screw the board down with the screws through those holes. 

 For the top I made the first version with a gap so that both inside and outside it would grip the bottom, but that didn't work well. I was also a little off on the top hole for the joystick. I moved the hold forward a little, made it larger, and removed the inside 1mm used for the inside ridge all the way up to the top. The case is narrow and was making the joystick get stuck and it didn't fit the base well.

Upon printing out the second one, it fit. I pulled it off the plate a little quick which is why the right side is a little white. Other then that, this is exactly what I was wanting. It is a small flat package that houses the joystick.

So off to testing I went. I realized quickly that it would not stay still on our carpet floor. So I took a page from Jerry Rigs Everything and grabbed a board out of our scrap pile. I used all the extra space at the bottom of my case to drill holes to mount it to the board.

After putting back on the lid and having my son try it again it worked out great! Now he can use his left foot to control his motion in his favorite game, Minecraft. He was getting pretty accurate after 10 minutes being able to select things in his inventory with his foot. Below you can see the foot joystick in action.

Overall it was a grand success. I need to paint the case and cut down the piece of wood more, sand and stain it, but overall I am very happy. I haven't seen him so happy to play Minecraft for awhile. Usually it involved him jumping between the left and right joystick continuously. This is no longer the case for him.


Below is a picture of all the equipment together. Major Kudos to Microsoft for making the Xbox Adaptive controller happen. Also thanks to PDP for making a very simple joystick that I could mod like this. Finally thanks to my wife who helped sanity check me on this as I was working along on this. Definitely one my more favorite projects. :)

If you would like the 3d files they are linked below:

Foot Joystick Box Bottom
Foot Joystick Box Top

If you have any questions then leave me a comment.

Microsoft Silverlight update repeatedly fails to install with error 0x80070643

The Problem
My wife made me aware that she always had one update to install while shutting down her computer. Being an IT guy by day, it took me a little before I got around to troubleshooting the issue. Anyways a quick glance in the "System" Event Logs revealed that a security update for Microsoft Silverlight seemed to be the issue.

Now my wife doesn't use Silverlight very much and I may have been able to get away with simply uninstalling it. I wanted to figure out the issue though and with that in mind continued on in my troubleshooting.

 It was update KB2890788 and was failing with error 0x80070643. This problem had started on September 8th with the update KB2847559 transitioning to the other update on the 10th.

Up to this point my wife had done the install on update option, so I thought I would try manually installing the update via the Windows Update control panel applet. Selecting only it and pressing install led to a "Preparing to install.." status for quite some time. In the "Application" event logs I was getting informational events from "Windows Error Reporting" basically telling me the update wasn't installing.

 

Never got an error on the Windows Update section, so I closed  it.

The Solution
I then manually downloaded the latest version of Silverlight from Microsoft's site. I then installed it and it upon completion it told me it was successful. You can see in the picture below the install log in the background as well as the successful completion message.

Upon completing the install I had it check for updates again and the update it had been failing on no longer appeared in the list.

So it appears that the install of Silverlight became corrupt and the update was unable to apply. A fresh install corrected the issue.

CIP 007 R2 Ports and Services - Part 1 (Basic Port Enumeration)

Disclaimer: The information I provide is that of my own and does not reflect on the organizations I work for. The information I share should not be the only thing you rely upon for compliance and is provided as-is.

One of the areas of great concern for individuals involved with NERC CIP is CIP standard 007. It is the standard under which most of the work for compliance is done to secure assets. CIP 007 is also the most violated standard. A big offender is standard R2, Ports and Services. It is also a difficult one to comply with since there a large amount of services and ports per asset.

This topic will be broken into multiple posts due to the amount of information that can be shared. Ports and services will also be broken into different posts. I will begin by discussing some areas of overlap.

CIP 007 R2 states, "An entity will disable all unused ports and services not required for normal or emergency operation." The requirement for this standard is interesting. Let's discuss what this means in relation to ports first.

This relates to logical network ports like TCP port 25, which is most often used by SMTP. Ports, as related to compliance and security, considers only listening devices. For those new to network ports this means the network ports that are open and waiting for a connection from other devices or potentially from another process on that computer. NERC CIP does not currently have standards for physical ports on an asset. This does not mean physical ports should not be tracked. As part of its overall security standpoint a company should track and control the physical ports on their devices. Additionally this approach may serve the side benefit of ensuring information is collected when these ports do fall under a compliance standard of one type or another. A person or entity may decide that they want to define what a port and listening port is. As of the time I wrote this post, there was not yet a definition by NERC of either of these, but be sure to check that as new information surfaces daily.

There are multiple ways to collect information about a devices ports. Many devices are capable of listing the ports via their management face through a program or internal function. On a windows and linux based box, a person can run the netstat via the command line. Below is just a small sample of the output that may be seen from running "netstat -abno" windows based box.

 

This method is going to usually be the most accurate way to collect ports from a device that supports it.

Another way to collect ports from a device is to use a port scanning tool such as NMAP, Angry IP Scanner, etc. This software works by manually checking ports on the device to see if they are open. Usually the tool is run from a remote device. Remember to verify the full TCP and UDP port ranges 0-65535. Scanning only TCP is not sufficient.

Port scanners are usually the only method to collect ports from devices that do not have an internal method to collect ports information. An example of such a device may be a PLC. The output of an NMAP scan using the Zenmap GUI is shown below:

The benefits of using a port scanning tool is that a person can enumerate ports from devices that are incapable of enumerating ports natively. Additionally, all data is usually stored in one location. Some device vendors, like Allen Bradley, will provide software to scan their devices for open ports. In most cases a person or entity should use what their vendor requires.

There are some negatives to using a Port scanning tool.

• Port Scanning isn't always consistent, so a port may be missed. Try multiple scans to catch all listening ports on a device.
• If there are devices such as a firewall, in between the device conducting the scans and the device being scanned, reliable port data may not be retrieved.
• Some devices do not handle being scanned well. They may lock up, slow down, or function in methods that are not acceptable.
• This may mean that a person or entity would want to have an identical device in a non production network that can be re-configured in an identical manner. This device than can be scanned to collect port information.
• Possibly scanning the devices while not in production also may be necessary.
  

With all of that in mind I would recommend that when companies purchase new devices they ensure that they are capable of natively enumerating port data. There are many network switches, firewalls, control devices that can do this.

There will always be devices that cannot do this so make sure that the person or entity can reliably enumerate the ports of these devices via a Port Scan. Additionally some malicious software can hide listening ports from native commands such as netstat, so an occasional port scan may be useful for comparison purposes.

In the next NERC CIP related post I will share additional port enumeration information as well as methods to "disable" the ports and start to cover services.

Into to NERC CIP into my Blog

NERC CIP two acronyms  when placed together that strike fear into the heart of any that have been given the responsibility to abide by its requirements. NERC, North American Energy Reliability Corporation, is the entity that is in charge of developing and enforcing the standards used to ensure reliability of the North American bulk power systems. 

There are many standards that are under NERC's umbrella but if you are here reading this it is because you desire to know more about CIP. CIP, Critical Infrastructure Protection,  is the standards that relate specifically to the protection of the electrical control systems. CIP is the combination of standards that are also a bit of a touchy topic for many due to the feel by some that NERC is not doing enough to protect the electrical grid. To any who have had to abide by the full set of NERC CIP standards this is hard to believe since it requires a lot of work. I will not be debating the standards, although I feel that they are forcing many entities to make steps towards security, which is a good thing.

NERC CIP has been my life for the last year.  As with the rest of my blog the intent of this new period will be to share things I have learned to hopefully help all everyone else trying to accomplish their work. Before we get started  there are two tips I want to share.

1st - Compliance is not security and some things it requires will not make sense, but if it is required you must do it.

2nd - If you don't have evidence of something you did, you didn't do it. This is important to remember. A small portion of what you will do will be work, the other large portion of it will be collecting evidence and documenting your work.

This is the first post of many. One area I will be focusing on is the infamous CIP-007. I will still be doing my posts of troubleshooting and such, but NERC CIP is a big part of  my life now. So on to it.

 

For some good reading:

http://www.nerc.com/pa/CI/Comp/Pages/default.aspx

Problems sending Messages via Voice with Windows Phone 8

Problem

So I started having issues after moving to Windows Phone 8 sending texts via voice. I would press and hold down the Windows key to get it to accept my command.

After doing this I would state my command of "Text (Person's Name)" and if I said it without food in my mouth it would recognize the command and show the next dialog box.

It would then bring up the next screen giving me the option to "say your message"

After stating my message whatever it was, in this case it was "Purple people eater" then it would show me this screen.

Now if I continue to do everything by voice as well as sending then everything works, but their are instances where I manually want to add some additional text that it is having a hard time recognizing. To do this pressing on the pencil in the middle, aka "Edit", allows you to do just that and brings up the next screen. I can then add what I want and then press the "Send" button.

 The problem is that I then get an error shortly after sending it.

If you have a sharp eye then you noticed in the last two pictures it is actually showing two recipients. Now I never added the second recipient. When you press "Edit" it for some reason adds just the last name of your recipient. This last name does not have any number associated so it errors out although for some reason it thinks it has an email address of the last name as shown below:

 

This can be re-created as many times as you want. I am using Windows Phone 8 running on a Nokia Lumia 920 running the portico the latest update through ATT. Now enough with the problem.

 

Solution



So I started thinking it was odd that it was just the last name. I remember there was a way to change how contacts were displayed in the "people" hub. So if you go under "Settings" and then "Applications." Clicking on "people" brings up the people settings.

Now changing the "Sort list by" either to "First name" or "Last name" results in the same behavior. So I decided to change the "Display names by" setting from "Last, First" to "First Last."

 

Upon testing the same procedure show above, clicking on "Edit" shows the following message screen.

As you can see above there is only one name now. Sending this message does not result in any error being displayed later.

 

So if you are facing the follow behavior you can either change your "Display names by" to "First Last" or you can delete the last name of your contact out of the "To:" field each time. Either way I hope this gets fixed in a future patch.

 

Sorry for the large number of images, just wanted to properly document this bug.