Arduino Initiation Ceremony

My younger brother has to work with arudino for a school project. Over the weekend I went though the basic tutorials with him.

This pictured captured his "hello world" moment, blinking led. 

LED Cube - ini

Project Initialization: LED Cube (3by3)

So I decided to make a LEDCube.
 A simple 3by3 one to begin with. 

(1) Didn't have a prototyping board so I compromised.
Poked holes at what I hope is equal distances. 

(2) First row soldered.

(3) All soldered. 

(4) This was definitely the hardest part.
 Soldering them one on top of the other.

At this point I realized I did not have enough resistors. I had overestimated my supply. Anyway I have ordered a bunch of stuff from DX, awaiting the delivery now. 

PiCade V1

So my PiCade project has been on hold for one whole sem now. I can't remember why. My club. Open Source Society, was invited to take part in CEC so all of us had to display a project. I thought it would be a good time to get this running.

So I installed RetroPie again. I then soldered ( I had borrow my friend's kit, so I could do it in my room) all the wires to the buttons. The joystick I had done long back. 

I then proceeded to my TV lounge to test it, since my monitor does not have HDMI input. However the Pi could not turn on, due to it not having enough power. I came back to the room and plugged it in, it turned on fine and I could ssh in. Since I did not have any alternative power supply or monitor I tested it no more that night.

I went home the next day and tested it again, it switched on. Now this part is where I had the most trouble, getting the joystick to be recognized.  I had to try a lot of drivers, none worked. In the end the first one I had installed, from Adafruit worked. Turned out I had just named  a folder wrongly. That got it to be recognized by EmulationSation but to get Snes to recognize it I had to download a python script that ran in the background which made the GPIO inputs appear like a keyboard. I found it online, I will post an update soon with all links.

Next I went to work on the holding station. I found this box to be perfect as it had a display at the front, from which people would be able to see the internals.

 It was a nice fit!

 I decided to put the buttons in foam then fit the foam onto the box.
It was a nice and tight fit!

But damn sadly the foam broke for the last button. And cutting metal accurately was quite hard anyways...So

 I created this little beauty! There is a small flap at the back for the wires to come out from.
 The pi can be placed inside while being carried around and when on display/being used it can sit outside.

 Here is a short clip of it in action.

Some photos of the booth, including projects by other members of NTUOSS:

 

NTUOSS: https://www.facebook.com/ntuoss

PiCade 2.0

Will there be a PiCade 2.0? Yes definitely!

This time it will be powered by Pi2 and will be hosted in a proper cabinet for the entire system! I will probably do this in June or July.