Kikker (Frog) Arcade - WIP

[DoPlJoe]

Hello fellow arcade diy enthusiasts.

With the help of some of the mountain of wisdom on this forum I came up and built this , for my little nieces and nephew. Sorry for the bad quality video, but it was taken just before I took it to my sisters house 140 km away. In the end I'm pretty satisfied how it turned out, while mostly improvising based on the materials we were able to get our hands on. It can be used as a traditional cocktail-cabinet with players on each side (doubles as a pinball machine in this configuration), or up to 4 players side-by-side when needed.

Couple of things I think turned out well, but might not be obvious from the low quality video:
- We did our best to hide all the bolts, nuts, hinges and wires while still being able to take it apart without damage (downside is that you have to remember the exact order, or you have to start again).
- Note how the hinged parts not only line up perfectly in both positions, but also never leave a child-finger-sized gap, while at the same time not showing any wires or hinges and being very very strong (They can take the weight of the entire hefty cabinet with ease, which is more than a typical child is capable of). Even though those hinged consoles were the central concept around which the entire thing was created, getting them right took a lot of effort and numerous failed attempts, before it not only fit and worked right, but was comfortable to use as well in both situations. (I was just struck by a tinge of guilt, for still not having configured a nice pinball frontend on it yet with proper keymapping).
- As a side effect of using air to cool the monitor, the 2 players along the side have a comfortable breeze on their hands, especially handy for long sweaty sessions.
- Last but for a hifi-fanatic like me certainly not last, the sound quality is surprisingly good. After exhausting all audio/hifi-related shops I could find, I eventually "gave up" and settled on the frog-eye solution you see in the video by modifying an off-the-shelf pc-set despite it's limitations. Luckily a friend who had many years exerience in building speakers gave some tips for the dimensions of the subwoofer and the end result blew us away. I admit this was pure luck, but because of it, it's primary use is as a jukebox throughout the day. It also made the thing come alive, with the frog position for standard use and the crocodile position for pinball.

I realize I'm a bit late in posting my project, probably because I feel that I still need to finish it. Nevertheless it's been working fine on an almost daily basis for a multitude of purposes. This summer I intend to incorporate a leap motion controller for touchscreen, gesture control and maybe even things like simulated light-guns and a few other ideas. I just thought I'd share it here as a bit of a thank you for the inspiration this forums has given me with this project.

[drventure]

Wow. Nicely done! 

I like the hinged p3p4 panels. You can play across from each other or side by side.

Is glare on the screen any issue? Seems like it might be but it's tough to tell from the video.

And welcome aboard!

[DoPlJoe]

Thanks

The glass pane does indeed suffer from glare if you put it in front of a window or a bright sunlit white wall and looking at it from low angles, but I don't see it as a problem. I'm all for children playing outside when it's a very bright day anyway. Apart from that the benefits far outweigh the slight glare issue. When not in use, it still functions as a table and it protects all the electronic bits underneath. Not something to be underestimated with all the accidents kids tend to have (especially with sticky beverages and such).

The tinted glass did have another effect which I hadn't anticipated, it seems to positively influence the colors, they are now somehow more vivid, deeper in contrast (on top of the IPS-screen being very impressive to begin with). It also seems to give an almost 3-dimensional effect, which is especially striking with pinball emulators and other more shallow 3d-games. You almost feel like touching the stuff below the glass. It also makes the screen disappear in the black of the table-surface, which not only helps with deep blacks, but makes black bars invisible as well, resulting in more freedom with screen sizes/scaling and aspect-ratios.

[drventure]

Oh, don't misunderstand me. I'm all for the glass plate on top. Definitely adds to the finished pro look.

There was a project on here a while back (can't find it now), that was a cocktail like yours, but in which the top actually pivoted up when playing. Pretty slick.

But your build is very nice

Ok. one critique. Those rainbow buttons bother me a bit, but if this is for kids, I can roll with that 

[DoPlJoe]

Ok. one critique. Those rainbow buttons bother me a bit, but if this is for kids, I can roll with that 

Totally agree on the dislike of the rainbow buttons, but I was overruled by my sister. Originally this thing started out as a special birthday present for her youngest daughter. My first concept was hiding a pc in a glass-top desk/table, with some educational use and games, then the idea started to morph into an arcade-cabinet, because I wanted it to be something she could share with her two older siblings. Because other people wanted to contribute I had to make a few concessions to keep the price down(I'd probably gone all rgb-backlit) or things like choice of colors and such. Once I got the controllers and I started looking for construction materials and especially because my father got involved in building it, things just got way out of hand.

Funny thing is that only after the thing was almost done, I started to realize that we had gone too far for a birthday present. To prevent problems with jealousy it was decided that instead of making it a present, the cabinet would be mine and I'd let the kids borrow it.

I did consider making it possible to tilt the table, but after thinking about it I realized that it would never work for this concept. The idea is that people/children sit around it, while tilting the screen would only benefit a single side of the machine. Actually, this is a bit of a lie, it is not the reason I did not solve that "problem".

Did you ever notice the effect a brightly colored screen has on a room with people? At the very least it is disturbingly distractive, but more often than not it turns everyone in its line of sight into mindless zombies, which irritates me no end. So the choice for the fresnel-effect was a very deliberate one on my part. I wanted the thing to only grab the attention of the people who are actively using it and requiring the act of walking and leaning over to see what's going on. I'd planned and hoped that this would make it a more social thing, where people need to huddle close together to enjoy what's going on, plus (apart from the sounds) it would not negatively affect the rest of the room/people.

another idea I dropped for this project (video is not mine btw, but it is one of the nicer videos showing a similar concept), but could be of interest for other arcade-cabinet makers, aimed at single players. I got as far as a python-facetracker which detected face size and position. I stopped because I could not figure out a way to isolate the face of the player plus even if I did, it would still only look right for one single person and his point of view.

The one thing I do plan to add with the help of the leap-motion, that should arrive soon, is gesture and touch-control. This could up the level as a party piece even more. As you may have noticed from my other videos, I'm not unfamiliar with creating 3d-models and games, so I might even create some completely original programs for this project.

[drventure]

Did you ever notice the effect a brightly colored screen has on a room with people?

The one thing I do plan to add with the help of the leap-motion, that should arrive soon, is gesture and touch-control.

Yeah, I hate going to a party and someone decides to turn on a TV. Nothing kills a gathering quicker. I usually leave right around that point. <sigh>

Sounds like you've some very interesting plans in the works. Looking forward to seeing more!

[keilmillerjr]

Wow! That is really cool! I love how the sides can fold out! And the secret buttons!