I wanted a more portable version of an arcade machine. Also, my brother was visiting for the holidays again, so I thought it would be a fun tradition to make another arcade machine with him.

I also love the look and folksy feel of cigar box guitars, so I thought I would combine these ideas into one.

I had a cigar box laying around from old instrument projects – I think my dad had just gotten it from a cigar shop. I also ordered the Raspberry Pi Zero CanaKit, plus an assortment of arcade buttons, a joystick, and motherboard kit from Amazon (whatever was cheapest). I also got a small electronics fun kit for any small parts I may need.

I thought drilling the holes was going to be the easiest part, but projects always prove to be harder than you expect. The holes for the arcade buttons were 1 1/8″ if I remember correctly, so I set of to the store for a forstner bit to drill it. The guy helping me at Ace Hardware talked me into a cheaper spade bit. This ruined my first cigar box – this bit did not work at all with the type of wood and project I was working with, and tore the box up. I had to go back to the store for a forstner bit, quite cranky at having wasted time, money and a cigar box.

Once I got the simple carpentry business of drilling holes done, we hooked up all the buttons, which was easier than it may look in the picture. Everything is labeled to make it easier. The hard part was configuring the Raspberry Pi Zero to run the emulator correctly. Johnny did most of the programming bits with it, because it immediately frustrates me to try.

We got it happily running. You just have to plug it into the TV via a mini HDMI cord, and plug the power cord in, and it will run games straight from the box. I was disappointed at the gaming limitations of the Raspberry Pi Zero (you can only get the earliest systems on it), and how confusing it still is to get games on it. But I do like the idea of portable arcade machines, too, and might explore this avenue more.

Made in 2018.