Advice needed on 'neat' Project!

[vacpress]

Hey everyone!

a little mechatronics 202 homework problem I made up for myself as I begin to get into haptics and haptic research (See Wikipedia). I am currently figuring out a hardware approach to breadboard before considering the software.. I intend to do motor control with PicBasic, hence my posting here. Thanks for any advice in advance!

Anyhow. Attached and linked is a 'worksheet' I have made to help me figure out how to tackle this rudimentary 1-axis force feedback interactive machine.

Essentially I wanted to make a tug of war machine, but after some tinkering with gears, belts, and motors, I decided to just go super simple, and do a 'Stick'. Incidentally, this is why I have been mooning around about USB lately..

If any of you geniuses out there have any advice about ways to attack this, let me know.. I have considered resistive pressure sensors or similar as well.. But I do not know.. I also considered various scenarios with springs and linear encoders.
<img src="www.robertguyser.com/1axishaptic.gif">