Danie Murray's F1 Racing Wheel Is a Fully Self-Contained Games Console — And You Can Build Your Own
3D-printable wheel uses an inertial measurement unit to track turns, offering a way to enjoy racing games wherever you are.
Maker Danie Murray has designed a standalone 3D-printed Raspberry Pi-powered games console for the racing enthusiast — inspired by the steering wheel on Formula 1 cars.
"I’m a big F1 fan, and because the Saudi Arabia and Bahrain races were not on the calendar at this point in the season the wait for the next F1 weekend felt too long," Murray explains of the inspiration behind the project. "So instead of waiting in anticipation, I decided to build my own racing wheel controller to bring the F1 experience closer to home."
The 3D-printed housing is inspired by the yoke-like steering wheel on Formula 1 cars — but where a real F1 steering wheel becomes useless once detached from the vehicle, Murray's version is designed for us in free air. The trick: a built-in full-color display coupled with a TDK InvenSense MPU-6050 inertial measurement unit, which allows the wheel to display a game while tracking the movement of the wheel for control.
Both the sensor and the display are driven by a Raspberry Pi 5 single-board computer housed within the steering wheel itself, along with an Arduino-compatible microcontroller board that connects to additional controls including six tactile and two toggle switches plus three potentiometers. There's a vibration motor for haptic feedback, though no speaker — and there's no internal battery in this version, meaning the wheel needs to be tethered to a USB power supply.
"The next phase is to build a real RC car that will simulate the 2026 F1 hybrid cars," Danie explains. "I want to build the RC car so that it will have two motors. The one motor will simulate the internal combustion engine of the F1 cars and the seconds motor will simulate the electric motor. The idea is then to test different strategies for energy consumption."
The full project write-up is available on Instructables, along with 3D print files, a bill of materials, and source code for the Raspberry Pi and Arduino boards under an unspecified license.