Tron:Legacy themed Arcade

Details

The outer shell material is black expanded pvc painted with blacklight sensitive acrylic paint. The UV paint was actually transparent, so there's a layer of white primer underneath. The "frame" is just small segments of 2"x2" anywhere the plastic forms a right angle. The screen is an old CRT monitor behind a sheet of polycarbonate. The monitor bezels and the polycarbonate were masked and painted black. Everything is attached with short drywall screws.

The control board is a hacked up keyboard with SuzoHapp switches attached in place of keys. This and the monitor plugged into a computer running the game. 3 machines ran Packman, 3 machines ran Grid Wars, a clone of Microsoft's Geometry Wars, and 8 machines ran a lightcycle game called Armegatron Advanced. This specific copy allowed for player drop-in/drop-out and multiplayer across multiple computers. We set up two sets of 4 machines, where each set of 4 players could play against each other. Lastly, there were two signature machines. Mine ran Einhänder. Raymond's ran Tou-Hou.

Project Logs

Collapse

Reverse Disassembly
Samuel Wittman • 06/09/2014 at 17:32 • 0 comments

I didn't have much time to document the process as we were assembling, nor did an incredible website such as hackaday.io exist at the time of construction. I'd still like to show off how we put these together, so these are actually photos taken during disassembly. I apologize for the slight lack of quality.
Because 16 large machines take up a ton of space, I dismantled all of them this weekend, and it turns out the stack of parts (without electronics innards) fits into a box that could be easily transported in a pickup or larger van.
The outer shell material is black expanded pvc painted with blacklight sensitive acrylic paint. The UV paint was actually transparent, so there's a layer of white primer underneath. The "frame" is just small segments of 2"x2" anywhere the plastic forms a right angle. The screen is an old CRT monitor behind a sheet of polycarbonate. The monitor bezels and the polycarbonate were masked and painted black. Everything is attached with short drywall screws.
The control board is a hacked up keyboard with SuzoHapp switches attached in place of keys. This and the monitor plugged into a computer running the game. 3 machines ran Packman, 3 machines ran Grid Wars, a clone of Microsoft's Geometry Wars, and 8 machines ran a lightcycle game called Armegatron Advanced. This specific copy allowed for player drop-in/drop-out and multiplayer across multiple computers. We set up two sets of 4 machines, where each set of 4 players could play against each other.
I apologize for the low quality photos. My phone was dying, and the lighting wasn't great.
First, the shell pieces were painted prior to assembly. Frame pieces were attached to each side.
The sides attached to the bottom. We put rubber feet on the bottom in the corners and under the monitor to keep the machines from sliding on the tables.
The front trim attached. We took care to make sure all of the lines were continuous over the whole machine.
Back attached. There's a 2"x2"
Top attached.
Front panel attached.
Monitor inserted and marquee attached. The monitor needed to be inserted before the marquee was added.
We had 2 other specialty machines. Each was sort of a signature machine for both me and Raymond. My machine ran an old side-scrolling 2D shooter called Einhänder, for ps1. That machine used a tv, and the control board was made from a hacked up ps1 controller.
Raymond's signature machine ran a japanese top-down 2D shooter called Tou-hou, a game I personally know very little about. He contracted the art to my at-the-time roommate, who shortly after started attending art school in the midwest. The machine looked awesome in both daylight and under blacklights.
Artist's signature: Artwork by Clara Hagerling.
WHAT YEAR IS IT?!?
The whole machine. Unsure where the control panel ended up.
Front corners
Side panels.
I have more pictures somewhere. I have to dig them out.