The LEGO Duplo MAME Project

This is what happens when QA starts building instead of breaking stuff A move from one office building to another had forced us to take down a large decorative wall made out of LEGO Duplo bricks. The new office didn't give us room for rebuilding it and left us with 9 very large boxes stuffed with bricks. After 6 months of moving these boxes about and generally being annoyed with so many wonderful bricks just lying around unused, and entering a period of low activity, an idea struck after idly surfed various sites: Build an arcade machine out of Duplo and LEGOs only - with the logical exceptions of the computer parts (PC, Monitor, Soundsystem) and the controller stick (as the latter would not be durable enough if made out of bricks). An old PC (Dell 550Mhz with 128MB of RAM and an ATI 9200 graphics card) was dug up and a 17" Dell monitor added to the project. Sound system merely consisted of the onboard soundcard (SB16, I believe) and a set of somewhat pathetic Creative loudspeakers (let's face it... The sound was rather thinny in those old machines anyway, so no point in adding subwoofer and what have we). Project took roughly a week with 3 guys (yours truly and two faithful helpers) building on and off as time allowed it and ended up consisting of some 3000-3500 Duplo bricks (size 2x4 in average).

Controller: The panel for the controller stick is build. All buttons are taken from DACTA/LEGO Mindstorms.

Controller stick: The stick (taken from an old arcade machine) is added to the panel plus decorative plates added on top of the buttons (basicly small LEGO satellite dishes with a swirly pattern)

Player 1 + 2 button: Additional buttons for controlling the MAME front-end are added (right side of panel) plus Player 1 and Player 2 buttons (left side of panel)

Backside of panel: A closer look at the wiring of the controller

Cabinet base - front: The cabinet base has been build, consisting of large plates for a sturdy bottom and then the main base consisting of 5 subchambers in order to make the cabinet more sturdy and solid - keeping in mind that it hasto carry the weight of a 17" CRT monitor plus take whatever beating the players are likely to give it. The slot in the back is where the PC is meant to be placed, ensuring easy access should repairs, reboots etc. be required. The figure on the front of the base is taken from the game Pingo - notice the transparent bricks in the eyes which are used for light effects (added at a later stage).

Cabinet base - front + right: The right side of the cabinet have a classical "Space Invader" depicted...

Cabinet base - front + left: And the left side of the cabinet have yet another "Space Invader" depicted

Cabinet base - topview: The sub-chambers and PC slot are shown here in more detail.

Cabinet midsection - rear: The midsection, which will support both the monitor and controlpanel have been build and the PC slot "roofed off", giving the clear impression of an alcove.

Right/front and left view of the cabinet base plus midsection. The two black squares visible on the front will be two buttons that will represent Coin 1 and Coin 2.

Top view of midsection: A top-down view of the midsection, where more sub-chambers are visible. The base of the cabinet has been "sealed off" using plates in order to construct more - but smaller - subchambers. The cables are for the Coin 1 and Coin 2 buttons added to the front.

Monitor platform: The platform for the monitor has been build and DUPLO ceiling tiles used to tilt the monitor. In front of the platform, the keyboard (which will be hidden inside the cabinet once finished) used to wire up all the controller cables is visible. At the rear, the lights used to make the eyes glow of some of the figures depicted on the cabinet can be seen. These are also taken from LEGO Mindstorms.

The monitor in place: The monitor has been placed in the cabinet. The top-left side of the cabinet have got the Piranha depicted with a nice evil red glow to it's eyes (which can barely be seen here).

Cabinet from the rear with monitor placed: The cabling for the computer and the various lights in the cabinet can be seen in the PC alcove at the back of the cabinet.

Busy builders: Two of the gits doing the actual building of the cabinet - and that's Mr Do on the top-right side of the cabinet (but you knew that already, right?!).

Main part of the cabinet is done and it's time to get the sound system installed. Originally it was intended that they would be an integrated part of the controller panel.

The "Insert Coin - Player 1 and 2" buttons: We decided not to rig up the actual coin mechanism we had managed to scrounge up from a gutted arcade machine and instead go for the more simple solution seen here.

Panel placed: Testing the placement of the control panel.

Repositioning of the speakers: The final position of the speakers, above the monitor, hidden behind the marquee.

Keyboard modification: The old keyboard was modified simply by adding cables (yet again from Mindstorms) directly to the printplate. It's not pretty, it's not clever, but it works.

The finished cabinet with Mame running.

Questions? Comments? Feel free to send them to me