Designed and built a fully functional arcade machine from scratch with the goal of operating it as a real-world business. The system integrates custom hardware, embedded systems, and backend monitoring to manage the machine remotely and collect operational metrics. The arcade cabinet was designed and assembled specifically for use in a public environment and is currently deployed and operating in a physical location.
The arcade cabinet was physically designed and assembled to operate reliably in a public setting. A Raspberry Pi runs a customized Debian-based environment configured to boot directly into the arcade interface, hiding the operating system to create a seamless arcade experience.
An Arduino Micro manages hardware inputs including the joystick, buttons, and a coin sorter. A custom control program allows the system to process coin inputs and translate joystick actions into game controls.
When the machine powers on, a Python script automatically runs in the background and sends periodic POST requests to a Flask server. This server collects operational data such as machine temperature, uptime, total revenue collected, and activity timestamps.
The data is displayed on a web dashboard that allows remote monitoring of the machine’s status and performance, providing insights into usage patterns and machine health.