Arcade Stick
projects
As a fun side project, I built myself an arcade stick for playing classic arcade games as well as the latest fighting games. At the time I wanted an arcade stick to get that classic arcade feeling however I didn’t want to break the bank. So I set out to build my own using materials I had laying around the house and only buying parts when needed.
Materials
The materials I used for this project included:
- Arcade buttons
- Arcade 8-way joystick
- Arduino Uno
- Electrical wire
- Scrap pieces of 1x4 pine trim (wood)
- Acrylic sheets
The Build
The case was built using the pine trim for the side walls and the acrylic sheets for the top and bottom surfaces. This ensured a sturdy case thanks to strong wood structure as well as a smooth and thin top and bottom layer that allowed the electrical components to be house properly at the right height. The components, the arcade buttons and joystick, were all connected to an Arduino Uno which made use of an existing project called Unojoy which allows you to flash your Arduino with firmware that turns it into a gaming controller for use on PC and PS3.
Conclusion
The arcade stick was a great project as it allowed me to build a physical device and program it to work and communicate with the software on my PC. I hope to eventually go even further with this project and create a custom form factor as well as add some extra buttons and features such as an led screen and customizable button mappings.