Arctic Arcade Project

by damianvandenbighelaar

6600

Intro: Arctic Arcade Project

This is a school assignment in which the goal was to design and construct an arcade machine using a Raspberry Pi. It had to be portable, light, and if possible cheap, so we did our best to make something that met those and the more specific requirements.


STEP 1: Laser Cutting

We used a laser cutting machine to cut the panels to shape, this machine uses .DXF files as instructions for cutting. All of our files are attached to this step, there is some pairs in there but they are all in seperate files.

Use every file only once, however you can combine some of them to cut them out of the same plate of wood.

Since I cannot explain how to operate every laser cutting machine out there I will have to assume that you already know how to operate the one you have access to or are able to get instructions on how to operate the machine from someone who is experienced with the machine you have access to.

STEP 2: Setup the Raspberry Pi

The raspberry pi does not come with games on it, or the software to run old console/arcade games so you'll have to install those yourself. luckily one of my project members has written out this explanation on how to do it:

"You take a micro sd card and format it to be used by the raspberry pi and install Retorpie with Etcher IO to flash the card. you insert it into the Raspberry and let it install then you take a USB stick with a file named "retropie" with a copy of the roms and insert it into the Raspberry. after which it will copy the info on it"

ROMS = the game(s) files

STEP 3: Gluing the Wood

For this step all you have to do is glue the wood. We just used the wood glue available to us at school but you can use basically any glue as long as it is decently strong because this thing is rather big and needs a lot of strength.

There is tabs on the sides of the panel shapes as you might have already noticed, those tabs will simultaniously show you what plates to attach to what other plates because they only fit where they are supposed to, as well as increase the surface that you can apply glue onto a bit.

But leave the top front plate (the 'hood') for now because it will be easier to put all the components in into the construction without that plate there.

STEP 4: Mounting the Components

Once all the wood panels are glued together properly and the programs and game is installed on the Raspberry Pi you can move onto putting all the components into place.

The exact layout of the components is unimportant to the function of the machine. Though, we recommend to put the Raspberry towards the back as it is the closest it can be to the screen.

The image provided of the internals is very messy but that is to show that it really doesn't matter, you can make it as tidy or messy as you want in there, as long as everything connects it is fine.

The screen is mounted on the slanted plate on top (the 'windshield').

  • The USB-C charger goes into the Raspberry Pi USB-C port to provide power
  • The controllers get plugged into the Raspberry Pi USB ports
  • The cable of the screen goes into the extension cord together with the USB-C charger
  • Then HDMI to VGA connect the Raspberry Pi HDMI port and the screen VGA Cable
  • AUX audio jack of the speakers connect to the Raspberry Pi as well.

STEP 5: Testing

Before gluing the final plate it is good to test if everything works. The game, the sound, the lights, etc.

We ourselves had an issue where the screen would keep turning off when mounted in its position, we fixed that by taking it off, opening it up, and unplugging the power cable and plugging it back in properly a few times.

Once everything is working you can glue the 'hood' on and that is it finished.