I’ve repainted the monitor black to match the rest of the unit, and redid the marquee with a second copy of the logo and a small strip of black electrical tape (to give an even contrast).

I’ve also added the servo motors to the sides with shapes cut from black acrylic that will rotate during play. I also have holes for ones in the front, though they will be unused because I don’t want players to get confused (by thinking they have to rotate them as well as the dials).

Lastly, my vinyl art stickers also showed up, and I’ve started adding them to the sides too!

This is after installing the monitor into the final coat of paint and placing a printed sheet of paper with the logo behind a thin sheet of clear acrylic (also laser cut). The LED strips have been installed behind to give the glow.

This is the final coat of paint (this took about a can and a half of Wilko Black Satin spray paint). You can see the installed socket/switch assembly in the corner as well.

This is the first coat of gray spray paint primer. After waiting a few hours, I’ll use a sanding block with a fine grain and add another coat before painting with black.

I’ve installed a bracket on the rear of the monitor to help keep it in place. The wood spacers (that are taped) have wood glue on them so they will be permanent.

The circular knob next to the power strip is also my first test for creating a custom knob for the cabinet.

I followed the steps on these two tutorials to prepare an internal power strip for a switch/socket that I’m waiting for.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Wire-Up-a-Fused-AC-Male-Power-Socket/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4Vhkgq4JEg

After being advised to be careful with wood glue (in case I would ever like to disassemble or reassemble the shape arcade)  I’ve covered the slotted wood connections with masking tape and added velcro strips to the outer panels. The unit is extremely stable, even in this configuration.

Building a Shape Arcade

After experimenting with the smaller prototype on the right, I realized that I needed to make things bigger to get the range of motion I want from the final piece.

I followed the excellent tutorial by TobiasPi (http://www.instructables.com/id/Mini-Pi-Powered-Arcade-Machine/) to quickly prototype a larger test bed with cardboard. This way I can quickly add lights and motors while I finalize my design specifications and changes to the design found in the tutorial.

As you can tell from the photo, I’m pretty excited about this!

I managed to get the Bluetooth module working, and improved the issue where the shape would jump around the screen by sending a check byte to the program set to 255. By then making sure that neither potentiometer sent 255, I could use that first number to make sure that the game was reading a “complete” message.

Upon further testing with my classmates, the overwhelming feedback was to make this more of an arcade experience than a controller experience.

So I’ll be tabling the Bluetooth function in favor of building a small arcade cabinet that has reactive elements (like colored lights that match the player, and maybe some servos moving shapes on the exterior).

Current Development Timeline