A man has hand-built a custom controller for his disabled daughter so she is able to play video games.
Rory Steel said the Nintendo Switch controller was built for nine-year-old Ava with a Microsoft device and components from eBay for about £110.
A video on Twitter of Ava, who is from Jersey, using the device has had more than 800,000 views.
Mr Steel said she had given the device a “big thumbs-up” and the attention had been “a little bit surreal”.
He said Ava, who has hereditary spastic paraplegia which affects her motor controls and speech, made the suggestion after seeing videos online.
Teacher Mr Steel, head of the Digital Jersey Academy, built the device with two joysticks and arcade game-style flashing buttons hooked up to a Microsoft Xbox adaptive controller.
He said the controller was built in a weekend after some “serious soldering” and “wire management”.
Rory Steel@JerseyITGuyFinished! Ava gives my homemade #accessibility controller V1.0 the thumbs up. She can play @Nintendo #BreathoftheWild on her #switch like her friends now. All thanks to @Microsoft
#adaptiveController #XAC @brycej @ArranDyslexia @shanselman
End of Twitter post by @JerseyITGuy
Mr Steel, who described himself as “always a bit of a tinkerer”, said Ava’s five-year-old brother Corben, who has the same condition, was also involved.
He said Ava had “actually stolen the limelight”, but the younger sibling was “straight in afterwards” to also play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
“She also said that she’s made me famous and asked ‘What’s my cut?!’,” Mr Steel said.
Image copyrightRORY STEEL/TWITTER
Image copyrightRORY STEEL/TWITTER
Some of Mr Steel’s tweets were reposted by Bryce Johnson, founder of Microsoft’s Inclusive Tech Lab and an inventor of the Xbox controller, who also gave him some suggestions for the controller.
Mr Steel said the project was ongoing, with future ideas including putting it into a wedge-shaped housing to make it easier to use.
He also said he was planning to put up instructions online for people who wanted to build such devices after requests from parents of children with similar conditions.
