The Cooparcade
I had always dreamed of making an arcade, and when the World shutdown in 2020 I had the chance to get in the woodshop with my dad and build The Cooparcade.
This was one of my favorite projects I’ve ever worked on, from a sketch in my notebook to learning each step of the way to combine woodworking, software configuration, and electrical work.
The Making of the Cooparcade
The Cooparcade boasts support for two players, and can emulate classic arcade games, Atari, NES, SNES, GBA, Gameboy Advance, and others.
How It Was Made
- Custom maple cabinet
- Hardware - Raspberry Pi 4 Model B+, buttons, joysticks, controller board, speakers and an amplifier, spare tv monitor
- Software - RetroPie OS on top of Raspian OS; configured to the controller board
- Beers, good tunes, some command line, and every tool in the woodshop
We started in the way all great projects start, drinking a beer and diving into it with unjustified confidence and blind trust in “the process”. The first step was to trace a tv monitor onto a piece of cardboard, which gave us our foundational dimensions for the cabinet. We built a frame around it and sketched out the general shape it would all take.
I took inspiration from classic Nintendo controllers for the button and joystick layout. The goal was to be able to emulate retro games, Atari, NES, and SNES, and be able to run the whole arcade off of a Raspberry Pi. My dad and I pulled out some maple boards, made a few trips to Micro Center to get the hardware and wiring, and got to crafting.
What I loved most about the process was spending time with my dad, learning tricks of the trade with woodworking, jig making, and the general acceptace of making mistakes and pivoting as we went. I had to call in the Mechanical Engineer, my little brother Tyler, to help me learn how to daisy chain the buttons.
Piece by piece we built the cabinet, with a jig that took the whole driveway to make a consistent arm arc for the curved sides.
Glossed the board with some lacquer…
Assembling the cabinet…
Play testing…
Added speakers..
Coming together…
Designed the graphic for the lighted marquee…
…and finished!
Since I live in Denver and wanted The Cooparcade to remain at my dad’s house in Cleveland, we decided to crank out a second arcade. I packed up the cutouts and parts into my car, and drove them back across the country to Denver where assembled and finished The Cooparcade 2.
