Bus Stop Pac-Man

Together with HK-reklame and Trondheim Makers, we created some awesome interactive bus stops to advertise for Trondheim Maker Faire.

In one of the bus stops we created a pac-man booth. And this post explains the process.

Electronics

The system consists of a Raspberry Pi running RetroPie and a (somewhat modified) Makey Makey.

Testing RetroPI
Testing RetroPie

Because the controls needs to be available for the users they need to be somewhat environmentally sealed. Therefore, by using a Makey Makey and some aluminium tape, we created a robust and waterproof “touch” panel on the outside of the booth. The WS2812B led strip is controlled by the Makey Makey, and because it’s open source and Arduino compatible it was easy to modify the source code to also control the led strip based on key strokes. The led strip library we included can be found here.

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Setting new High-Score to find out if we need more keys

Screen

The screen is a salvaged 17″ LCD with VGA input. To use this on a Raspberry Pi you need to use an HDMI->VGA converter. Easy!

Removing the cover
Removing the cover

Installation

Everything was mounted on a wooden plate cut into the correct dimension.

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Hacking into the “bus stop power grid” to give the system the holy 230V AC

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The local newspaper came to document that it now was possible to play pac-man on a bus stop
The local newspaper came to document that it now was possible to play pac-man on a bus stop

This installation will be available to play on to and including Trondheim Maker Faire 2014 (29.8 – 30.8). Come and play at M4 in Munkegata Trondheim, Norway!

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