IPO Kortrijk makes Monstarcade

[Monstarcade]

The third year of the professional bachelors Industrial Product Design at Howest, Belgium started making their own arcade.
The project is called the 'MonstarCADe' and is the first attempt of making their own arcade for the entertainment room. So, the students can now go for the oldskool electronic entertainment that was loved by their professors when these were youngsters too.
The students took an very different approach on the looks, based upon the comic 'kid Paddle'.

Read the full story on the blog:
http://monstarcade.blogspot.be/
It's in Dutch but the pictures tell more than a thousand words they say.


Step one: brainstorming and choosing the final two. To get to the final two designs, the group was seperated in two teams. Each team could present one final idea.
Step two: initial design
     The students went for 3 teams:
     - team 1 : designs the cabinet and hardware implementation
     - team 2 : desings the lightguns and arms
     - team 3 : designs the control panel and coin mechanism
     - All teams : work together for the different sollutions to combine them into a good build.
Step 3
     Groups work on their seperate project, but still work together so they don't lose the oversight.
Step 4 combining everything
    This is the actual phase, next gathering after the exams.
     Update : Getting into the finishing stage... But this stage is known to take a lot of time...

Best regards,
Olivier Demortier

(the professor that thinks by enjoying a project, you get to learn the most!)
You only get old when you lose the child in yourself, so I'm pretty safe...

Pictures :
1 : how it should look, arms not yet attached
2 : The gun, inside but not yet with electronics (more info, see below)
3 : the work so far
4 : The workshop of our college in Kortrijk Belgium, feel free to hop in 

[BadMouth]

Looks awesome! 
I wish I'd went to school for engineering/design.

Do you know if the light gun uses IR emitters or is it a real light gun that uses the CRT screen?
Just curious because real light guns rule. 

[thatpurplestuff]

Love the concept and it looks like it's got a ton of potential (the padded tongue is freakin awesome), but that monitor seems like it will seem insanely small for that size cabinet.  I could be wrong though...

[Monstarcade]

The monitor is for testing, it's is small indeed 
Found an PCI card with a S-video and AV out, so this means we can use a CRT Television inside.
We choose the CRT for its retro style. In answering to the previous mail, we use the aimtrak electronics but bought them barebone.
This means the students are making the housing itself also. We opt for two different approaches: vacuüm casting of the shels and perhaps some polyester. The second one is made with our 3D objet printer (rapid prototyping).

[Monstarcade]

The making of the lightgun so far...

Some selected ideas, had to come down to one.
Because of the 'monster-comic' the coice went to the most 'comic' looking gun, so concept seven with the transparent discs.

The making :
We're making two guns, based upon two techniques: the real prototyping and the rapid prototyping way.
     - The manual one is made by making a foam model (CNC milled) and continuing with hand lay-up (polyester) or using in the vacuüm mold machine.
     The inside will be strenghtened by lasered supports.
     - The second will be made by an objet-printer or FDM printer. So this means all the functionality and strenhth must be in the CNC model.

Here some of the selected ideas

[Monstarcade]

The tongue is probably the most original part of the Monstarcade.
It is made of foam, covered with a strong fabric, and a second layer is made by fake bright red leather.



The soft material makes it more kid friendly (you really can lean on the tongue) and is a big eye catcher.
Inside the tongue there is a modular control panel, so if I want to add wheels or other control schemes, it is easy to remove (but you need the key to remove).
All is connected to the PC by an Ipac.

[Monstarcade]

The making of the cabinet:
This one is more classic. The students use MDF panels, the two big ones were CNC milled, so they are really identical.
The used monitor is for testing, a bigger one will be in the final cabinet.
A coin mechanism is also installed. The students make it working on 20 eurocent coins, and hope to get some cash to support their school-trip to Chicago in the Easter hollidays.

All is working properly as we speak.

[Monstarcade]

The lightgun is an aimtrak model, but bought barebone, so only the electronics.
This is because as industrial design students, they need to make their own design.

Here some pics of the making.

[CoryBee]

This....is...AWESOME!

[Seith]

Amazing work so far!  Can't wait to see this one completed!

[Eldritch1969]

Very nice project
I would have worked more in my school days if I had to take part in a project like this one.
Kid Paddle is a fun comic ! Love it ! 

As the saying goes : you don't stop playing video games cause you're getting old, it's stopping playing them which makes you getting old !

[Jumpman64]

This is so amazingly cool.  I love the custom ray gun!

[PL1]

Did some of the ray gun designs remind anyone else of Earthworm Jim?


Guuuuuuuuuh-roovy!   


Scott

[CoryBee]

Did some of the ray gun designs remind anyone else of Earthworm Jim?

Guuuuuuuuuh-roovy!   

Scott

I thought I was the only one 

[Monstarcade]

update:

Image of the cabinet at the end of today:
- We re-painted it to make the color more even.
- made the cabinet stronger so it can withstand stronger forces.
- Fitted a new bigger screen (also CRT) which you can't really see in the image.
- Did some work on the coin-mechanism and coin-tray/drawer.
- vacuümformed the 4 shells of the Lightgun & fitted them together.

[BadMouth]

Nice tools make really nice things.   

[Monstarcade]

That's the benefit of using the workshop at our school.
Vacuum casting produces pretty good shells in plastic (Polysterene) of about 2-3mm thick.

But as you can see they are using other techniques also:
lasercutting, vacuumcasting, hand lay-up, rapid prototyping...