Project final result
Structure
The table structure is divided into two parts, the upper part containing monitors and electronics, and the pedestal that is simple wood.
Having designed and created the pedestal during the computer-controlled machine lesson, I just had to do just the top.
Like the pedestal, the top was designed using Freecad and milled with a 6mm tip on OBS.
Once mounted and polished the structure I inserted USB cables in the bottom to have USB HUBs positioned on the 4 sides of the table in order to connect joysticks or other devices.
Aracade Joystick
Joystick construction was the most complex part being almost completely realized from scratch.
The chassis was cut with laser cutting using the files created during the Computer-aided design lesson.
The buttons instead were made during the Molding and Casting lesson.
The electronic part was drawn with Eagle and then milled and welded.
The card uses an ATmega 32u4 as a microcontroller to allow us to use a Library to emulate keyboards or gamepads.
The only thing I did not manage to create alone was the joystick I had to buy.
To customize the joystick I bought a new knob and then I printed it in TPU with a FFF printer.
Raspberry Pi and Esp8266
Not needing very powerful hardware to run the operating system I chose to use a Raspberry Pi Zero.
I have installed two different operating systems in two different SD slides that can be changed as needed: In one i have installed retropie, a specific distro that pre-installed the emulators of the old game consoles, in the other I installed a debian to allow me to run all the table-specific software, starting with the game I created for this project.
To have a quick access to the raspberry I used an ESP8266 as an Access Point to create a wireless network that will allow me in the future to add some wireless controllers.
Embedded Software
The project has been completed by recreating a classic of video games such as Asteroids and transforming it into a multiplayer video game for four players, adapting the graphical interface to the player's position.
The game has been compiled into html5 to be compatible with any type of operating system.
The software used to make the game is Unity 3d.
Conclusion
It was difficult but fun to work on the final project.
It was very satisfying to see all the skills learned throughout the fab academy channel into a single goal.
Even the total cost surprised me at the end much lower than I expected. The total cost of the table was 120 €, excluding the monitor.
Downloads
- Table Top
- Table Pedestal
- Arcade Joystick
- Vynil Decoration
- Fabsteroids (source code)
- Fabsteroids (compiled html5)
