the picoStick measures 196 x 110 x 21 mm. this makes the product extremely portable, yet robust enough to endure even some of the most harsh and intense gamers and button-mashers.

a fully 3D-printed PLA exterior makes the picoStick light and affordable, while still being strong enough to withstand regular use.

well-designed tolerances allow the bottom to be screwed into threaded-inserts that are formed into place by melting the PLA.

a custom-designed PCB with an arduino pro-micro as the powerhouse houses all of the 14 kailh choc low-profile mechanical keyboard switches, available in linear, tactile, and clicky variations.

some friends were shopping for an ultra-portable fightstick controller. i took up the project and started prototyping soon after, and after almost a year, had a fully functioning product that would continue to be requested by friends.

as portability was the main goal, i knew i had to opt for low-profile switches from the start. the arcade-style buttons usually found in these types of controllers are sometimes over 4cm deep, and would require the entire housing to be at LEAST that thick.

as PLA is the most common household 3D printing material, i went with it not only to minimize costs, but also so i didn’t have to buy any special filament. after rigorous testing, i was able to conclude that PLA was plenty strong for this use case.

learning how to design a PCB was a daring task, but proved to be simpler than i first imagined, as i used a pro-micro microcontroller as the central processing unit. this minimized the cost of the PCBs, while still being much more robust and sustainable than using wires.