Makerspace arcade cabinet offers more than beating high scores
Students involved with the project discussed the process of building a working arcade cabinet from scratch. Photos courtesy of McKinley Piper, Carina Chan and Kalin Richardson
In the Swenson Family Hall of Engineering’s Makerspace, a group of students embarked on creating an arcade cabinet — the box-like consoles found in arcades that allow players to beat their Pac-Man high scores and develop prowess in Galaga. To the team of students creating the cabinet, the development has been an outlet of real-world work experience, creativity and collaboration.
While the project began as a personal one, the creation of an arcade cabinet became a course with the intention of providing students with the experience of real-world project work. It also allows an incentive for a game development programming class to demonstrate video games to students. From the time students were initially brought on to the project to the present day, the course’s roster has nearly doubled.
“It truly (is collaborative). That is so, so rare in a college setting,” said senior film production major Chloe Leis, who is the project’s senior advisor. “(In computer science,) you work on projects with people sometimes, but it’s not to this capacity. You’re all coding at the end of the day anyway, so it’s fun to watch the collaborative process through so many different aspects of fabrication and making and creativity.”
Matt Shugarte, the head of the project’s fabrication team, considers the team’s collaboration to be his favorite memory of the project.
“There’s a lot of moments where you can put in the work individually, but when you actually see it contribute to group collaboration and seeing everything work as an ecosystem… there’s different groups working at a time, things are getting done,” said Shugarte, a junior electrical engineering major. “And yet, this wouldn’t be possible with the individuality aspect of just grinding away… Honestly, I like (the team collaboration) because it’s a bigger payoff, to be quite honest. Just seeing everything put together.”
At its core, the arcade cabinet is a computer that is able to play student-made games, in addition to containing programs that can simulate a multitude of video game consoles and eras. In terms of representing different consoles, the team refused to have the final product emulate any game console that is currently on sale in order to avoid taking money away from those companies. Starting May 15, the arcade will be located inside the Fowler School of Engineering’s Tech Shop N106.
To project manager Kalin Richardson, a sophomore software engineering major, the cabinet being able to showcase student games is beneficial for students in Chapman’s game development programming minor.
“I think the importance of having students be able to put their own games on is that our game development minor with Fowler and Dodge is growing at a very fast rate, and so with the amount of students who are interested, I think it’s very important to (give) them a nice outlet to then put their games out to the public.”
She continued: “Having students be able to upload their games, and even come back and play them on the arcade or show their friends or their family and say, ‘I built this game, and it’s on this really cool arcade that this really cool group of students put together,’ is most definitely beneficial to not only their personal ego, but (also) how they can put their mindset towards their career.”
The project was not an easy one. The construction of the game cabinet included the use of micro-electronic coding, program writing, 3D modeling and printing, fabrication and a laser-cutter machine.
The new arcade will be located inside the Fowler School of Engineering’s Tech Shop N106 starting May 15. Photo courtesy of Kalin Richardson
Sophomore computer science major Keira Ryan worked on engraving the control and credit panels within the project’s art and lighting team. She was drawn to the project because of its intersection of creativity, hands-on work and fulfillment of course requirements. Her favorite memory of working on the cabinet was the first time she cut pieces of acrylic.
“I think it was such a fun experience for me because I got to learn how to use so many different tools that I’d never even heard of before,” Ryan told The Panther. “Everybody was just super welcoming to be like, ‘Do you know how to use this?’ And I’d be like, ‘Nope’ every time, and they’d always be like, ‘Totally cool. This is what it is.’ Just being able to learn is so fun and a great way to find out things that I didn’t know I’d enjoy.”
Leis feels that this specific endeavor is slightly different from other group projects that don’t involve the efforts of an entire classroom.
“A lot of classes, you might work on a group project here or there, but you’re not put together in a team and the team is the entire class,” Leis told The Panther. “You have to work together, and you don’t get a chance to do everything because that’s not how the real world works. You don’t get a chance to do every role.”
To Ryan, the importance of the project comes from the investment everyone involved has contributed.
“I think the biggest part of this project is the fact that all different majors, people who are passionate about different things, starting at all different experience levels… it’s a passion project for everyone,” Ryan said. “It’s something that everybody has their heart in.”
