Video Game Emulator

The Video Game Emulator is an RetroPie that allows you to turn your Raspberry Pi or PC into a retro-gaming machine. It builds upon Raspbian, EmulationStation, RetroArch and many other projects to enable you to play your favourite Arcade, home-console, and classic PC games with the minimum set-up. For power users it also provides a large variety of configuration tools to customize the system they want. After possible modifications, it could have a custom case or controller.

Engineer

Jonason L

Area of Interest

Computer Programming

School

Cupertino High School

Grade

Incoming Junior

Final Milestone

After completing my first milestone, which was overall just setting up the Raspberry Pi, I configured the controls on my gamepad to adjust other settings. Then, I used ROM’s to download my first game, Super Mario World, onto my Raspberry Pi to play. The main problems I came across during this milestone were adjusting the settings like language and time, and using ROM’s to download games. With further research and a mentor’s guidance, in the end, I was able to accomplish both these matters at hand. Since this was my final milestone, I could have added modifications like making a custom Raspberry Pi case or custom controller. I would have done one of these if I actually had the time, but I feel proud for completing my project with such a short amount of time. In addition, camp was extremely fun and I feel like I gained so much out of it.

First Milestone

This is a model of the Raspberry Pi 3 B+. Some of the labeled parts I used in my project were the Micro USB Port, full size HDMI, and 2 USB Ports. The Micro USB Port was used for powering up my Raspberry Pi, the full size HDMI was connected from my Raspberry Pi with my monitor, and one USB Port to connect to my wireless keyboard and the other to my wireless mouse.

My first step during this milestone was installing my Raspberry Pi into my case. I took the Raspberry Pi and fit it into the case, making sure to not push down too hard and damage the components. After doing that for a while, I could take the Raspberry Pi out whenever I wanted to do so.

My second step was to take my Micro SD card that is preloaded with RetroPie to put in my Raspberry Pi, while connecting everything from my Raspberry Pi and monitor. From there on, with RetroPie up and running, the rest is just setup like language, time, display, and wifi.

Besides making sure all my parts have arrived, downloading the SD image for my Raspberry Pi version and extracting the downloaded SD card image, the goal of my first milestone was to just install the RetroPie SD card image to my Micro SD card, so I can later set up the rest of the things. The main problem I came across while working towards this milestone was downloading the RetroPie SD card image, and setting up my monitor. I was unsure about the process of downloading the RetroPie SD card image that it took many tries until I finally got it to work. As for the monitor, there were problems booting up RetroPie on there. At first, I thought there was a loose connection somewhere, so I tried replugging the cables. However, that did not work, so I used a different monitor in the end. My next milestone will be to configure the controls on my gamepad to use.

Useless Machine

This is the starter project I did, the Useless Machine. All this is is a machine that turns itself off.

The main components of the Useless Machine comprise of a PCB, resistors, LED’s, a toggle switch, a limit switch, a gear motor, an arm, and a battery pack. We have the PCB that allows electrical current to flow throughout the system, the LED’s that give off signal lights, and resistors that prevent the LED from lighting up at the same time.

When the toggle switch is off, it reverses the current flowing through the motor, causing the arm to rotate clockwise until it reaches its original position. At the same time, the limit switch will be back on and the LED gives off a red light.

The arm is positioned at a certain position where it presses down on the limit switch, which stops all electrical current. When the user turns the toggle switch on, the machine is turned on allowing current to flow through the motor. The arm rotates counter-clockwise to turn the toggle switch off. At the same time, the limit switch will be off and the LED gives off a green light.

For my starter project, I chose the Useless Machine. What the Useless Machine basically does is that when you flip the toggle switch to turn it on, an arm appears out of the box to turn the toggle switch back off. From doing this project, I learned how to solder/desolder and how my project works. A struggle I had was soldering. Besides constructing, soldering was an issue because I would either put too much solder that required desoldering, or burn some of my components causing them to malfunction and not work. Other than soldering, learning how my project works was fine.