Our Family RetroPie Project

My kids are serious gamers. I thought it would be fun to work on a homemade arcade-system together so they could learn about electronics and so we could play some of the classic games together that I loved when I was a kid.

Getting Started

To get the kids excited we watched some videos of other people's home arcade projects. Instead of buying an entire kit, we started with an old project enclosure I had laying around.

We used a stepped drill bit and some nylon standoffs to mount some 3W 8-ohm speakers in the sides.

We definitely wanted this to be a multi-player system so we could game together. In addition to some USB Super Nintendo style controllers we got this arcade joystick and button kit as a built-in controller.

Putting It All Together

The kids got some great hands-on experience using tools and learning about electronic wiring.

We had tons of fun working on this together. My son has gotten really good at customizing the controls, and learned a lot about installing software on a Pi and interfacing the hardware. I'm having a blast playing some of my favorite old games with my children. I just wish I was as good at Street Fighter II as they are!