“Once we had the image of this monumental machine in mind, everyone was like, yes, let's actually build this big thing. Honestly, it was a bit of a quantity over quality situation,” adds Thomas Kühnel. Since the team decided on building something different and much larger than the references found online, making the necessary calculations before cutting the wood sheets was essential. “During the first days, I was a bit concerned that we were not going to be able to deliver the project in five days, because the original idea was so different from the machine that we built,” says Marco Morais.

Besides the unique casing design, almost everything was pre-planned by the project’s initiators. Most of the necessary equipment, such as a DIY arcade kit and raspberryPi 4 8GB microcontroller, were ordered beforehand and ready to use. Some members of the team had already checked how to connect and set everything up. “All the parts were there, so everything came together smoothly,” says Thomas Kühnel. “I even checked a couple of drawings on the internet for design ideas that other people built but on a smaller scale,” adds João Ximenes.

The team also attempted to 3D-model the design before construction, but quickly abandoned the idea due to the lack of time. Rather than that, they decided to print the plan on a wide format printer. In the end, they only printed a test sheet to make sure that the printer was working – and hung it on the wall to feel like there was some ‘engineering’ going on.

Construction

The team split into two working groups. The first step: construction. After all the casing pieces had been cut successfully according to their precise measurements, it was time to fasten the DIY arcade kit and the monitor in place. “We must have measured like 5 times and discussed. But then we just got it on the first try,” says Marco Morais. One question was whether the monitor’s height would work, as all the team had to go on was their visual judgment. “We only held it in the air and 1.70m looked fine, so we drew it on the whiteboard and then directly on the wood,” explained Developer Ruben Manteigas. They stood the wood up and checked it one more time, and then decided to cut it by giving it an ‘L’-shaped curve.

The ‘L’ shaped structure already had support for the monitor placement, so gluing the monitor between the wood pieces after removing the monitor’s base was enough. The speakers needed to be placed inside the casing, but in a reachable way to allow volume adjustment from the outside. For that reason, Senior Developer Flavio Rosa suggested 3D printing speaker grills. As the grills fit on the speakers just right, proving the precise nature of the 3D prints, the team decided to print a logo as well as other features for the machine. “It was very spontaneous, we just kept adding more and more to the overall design,” says Thomas Kühnel.

Having all the parts assembled, the team noticed that the machine was a bit lacking in the color department from the outside. So, just one day before their final presentation, they ordered LED light strips to add to the casing.

Now, what about the name? The time had come for another brainstorming. Out of three options, “Turbocade” was the team’s final choice – with the added model name “Turbinator 2000”, just in case they decided to build more arcade machines in the future.