Space Alien Invasion Penny Arcade

I have long held a fascination with anything mechanical, especially old-fashioned vintage Penny Arcades. I remember the first time I saw an old-fashioned Penny Arcade, it was in one of the shops along Main Street in Disney World. Sadly, this Penny arcade closed in the 1990s, but it held lots of old mechanical arcade games that were invented long before the first electronic video games came along. People would drop their pennies into all-sorts of fantastic mechanical marvels to play games and to watch short flip-book movies long before Pong and Pac-Man and Space Invaders were ever conceived, long before even the television was invented. As I was very young at the time, I found it amazing that there really were arcade games that you could play for just a penny and that worked without video screens. Ever since that time, I have wondered what it would be like to take a more modern video arcade game and transform it into a mechanical penny arcade.

 

So, I came up with this vague idea that I wanted to somehow turn a classic video game into an even more vintage style penny arcade. As someone who is somewhat interested in Steam-Punk, I had imagined a steam powered Victorian style penny arcade that featured space aliens and vibrant colors. The idea started with a notion of taking the idea of the classic game Space Invaders, and somehow turning this into a penny arcade. I had three major obstacles I had to first over-come before taking on this challenge. First off, I am in a wheelchair with some major physical limitations, so using the traditional penny arcade materials such as heavy wood and metals was simply not going to be possible. Anything that goes much beyond cutting paper with scissors begins to test my physical limits, so whatever the arcade would be made of would have to be very easy to cut and work with. The second major issue is that modern video games were not really created with the limitations of mechanical movements in mind. As much as I would like to have aliens burst into flames when hit by a laser like firing device, it probably would not be practical (at least not for my first version). Lastly, I really have no experience in building anything mechanical to begin with nor real idea what I was doing... but I never let that stop me before. I had the general vague idea of making something like a rubber-band shooter that would shoot at moving aliens... and so with that in mind, I started building with no real plans in mind.

 

Game Objective.

This game is titled Space Alien Invaders. I was just going to call it Alien Invaders, but than I was worried someone might think the object of the game was to shoot at illegal aliens. I figured “Space Invaders” was probably trademarked already, I didn't want to be the first person to ever get sued by making a mechanical arcade game. So, the object of the game is pretty simple. You are suppose to shoot the aliens but avoid hitting the city buildings. If by any chance you are a space alien, let me start off first by saying that I extend a warm greeting to our wonderful and benevolent alien overlords. Next, I don't in any way, shape or form condone the shooting of space aliens or any sort of alien for that matter. The object of the game therefore is not truly to “shoot” to kill the space aliens, but is instead to feed the aliens pennies from a penny shooter before the aliens invade the city to devour the humans who no doubt deserve to be eaten. The idea is to feed the aliens without knocking down any of the buildings. I just wanted to make sure I clarified that just in case.

While this is presented as one instructables project, it can in fact be broken into three separate and equally challenging instructables.

 

1. The Penny Shooter which is very cool in itself.

2. The black-light lamp

3. The arcade box

If you want to save significant time and reduce stress with this project, you may want to consider skipping the Penny Shooter by replacing it with a simpler rubber-band gun or a toy pop-gun. The penny shooter is designed to shoot pennies with an automatic penny re-loader, which while it is probably the coolest part of this project, it is also by far the most complicated portion. You can also probably skip the black-light lamp by finding something ready made lamp that suits the purpose.

 

What works and what doesn't

While this is a functioning Instructable, not everything I imaged would work on this arcade game actually worked in the manner I had planned. As I was making things up as I went along, you will see things to improve along the way and I make suggestions to avoid the problems I encountered. For example, the original intent was that heat from the black-light in this project would make the alien targets spin. While the alien's will spin if a coin enters their mouth, I made the alien cut-outs slightly too large for them to spin freely from the heat of the light alone. In theory my principals are sound, but I didn't have time to replace the alien targets with smaller targets.

 

Warning

Now, before you begin thinking you want to start this project, some fair warning. This project is one of those deceptively simple projects that, upon initial reading, you'll think to yourself that you can go out in an afternoon and build it yourself. While it is very simple, and perhaps because of this fact, on a frustration level of 1 to 10, 10 being you want to gouge out your eyeballs... this arcade project is somewhere between an 8 and a 9. In other words, at some point you'll try to gouge out your eyeballs, but in all likelihood, stop just short of doing so. While this would be a fantastic game for something like a school fair or carnival, if you think you can build it in an afternoon... my best wishes to you and your attendant at the insane asylum who will be wrestling the strait jacket onto you.

 

Please also be sure to read the safety note at the end of this project. As with all projects, be sure to wear protecting eye-wear (in the event want to gouge out eye-balls) and take all necessary safety precautions. Never leave this game unattended.

 

Materials For Gun

• Assorted Balsa wood (Can substitute thin plywood or other wood for most portions)

• rubber-bands

• 1 inch nail tacks (optional but recommended)

• ½ inch nail tacks (optional but recommended)

• Bamboo skewers

• Dowel stick cut to aprox 6 inches

• sandpaper

• Small wooden spools (optional)

• small springs (optional)

 

Materials for Arcade Box

• Styrofoam board 2 sheets

• Card-stock paper- Black, white, and Orange

• 2 inch Brad Fasteners and ½ inch Brad Fasteners

• Bamboo skewers

• Balsa wood

• color printer – Optional

• Neon Florescent markers – Optional

• Cardboard box

• Tinfoil

• Small wooden spools

• small beads (optional)

• bicycle spoke cover (optional)

Materials for Lamp

• Plastic empty CD box

• Empty Coffee Can

• Bottle Lamp Kit

• Black-light

• Screws

• Contact Lens bottles (used as feet... can substitute)

• Tin snips

• Drill or saw - optional

 

Materials for All Components

• Glue

• Exacto knife

• Scissors

• Hammer (optional but recommended)

• Neon Florescent paint

• Foam brushes

• Pencil

• Permanent Markers

• Compass

Step 1 The Gun Overview

The first step of this Instructable is the creation of the Penny Shooter gun. If you wish, you may be able to substitute a simpler variation of a rubber-band gun or a store-bought toy gun, but where is the challenge in that? There are several parts in this gun that must fit together precisely to function properly. The gun of this game makes this arcade a real coin operated arcade. For the gun, I wanted to create something that would shoot pennies without the person being required to constantly load another penny after every shot to recreate the feeling of an arcade shooter. While it would be relatively easy to create a crossbow that would fire a single penny, the automatic reloading part was the first real challenge of this project. For inspiration, I looked at the workings of the ancient Chinese repeating crossbow called the Cho Ko Nu. Unfortunately, it was not perfectly suited to the task of shooting pennies. After some work, I came up with the idea of inserting the pennies into a coin slot which would drop the coin down one at a time to where they would be hit by a stick as the bow releases. As the bow is pulled back, the next coin drops into its place. My first attempt at this design failed to account for someone holding the crossbow tilted downward which caused all the coins to spill out. To modify the design, I created a small door that swings open only after the trigger is pulled. This allows the gun to be loaded in any position without the coins falling out. Unfortunately, the first design of the door caused the coin to hit the swinging door changing the coins trajectory downward. The next design, while clearing the arc of the coins, still let the coins fall out. Finding the perfect balance between opening the trap door fast enough to clear the coin while keeping it closed long enough to prevent the coins from falling out takes a lot of trial and error not to mention several bottles of aspirin. Unlike a traditional crossbow, I created a track to ensure that the stick that hits the pennies hits at precisely the right point to send a penny flying by using two bamboo skewers as the track. Because you must hit the side of the penny, and the penny must be upright, this project requires some precision or else parts will not line up properly. The coin drop in particular must be just wide enough to hold the penny upright with a hole just large enough for the stick to pass through to hit the penny. If this is a fraction of a millimeter off, the stick will hit the coin drop instead of the coin and likely send it flying off of the gun.

Comments

[D00M99]

And it's shot in 3D because?...

[Whitestar245]

I can't imagine you would get the full effect in 2d...

[DarkRubyMoon]

Because I just got this nifty new 3D camera... and I've been dying to take some pictures with it :) And because its cool. Who doesn't love to wear red-blue 3D glasses? And because all the movies are doing 3D now... so I figure...why not?

If this message is a repeat... I thought my first post didn't post : /