Here you find information on the Arcade build by tutors at Emmauscollege Rotterdam around May 2024. We build it to make our students even more enthousiastic to learn coding. We also use it as a showcase of what our students can do. The games are created as part of an assignment by our students of 4-havo and 4-vwo (aged around 15) attending the computer-science course.
This repository contains all content that is downloaded by the Emmaus Arcade. The content is also hosted at https://informatica.emmauscollege.nl/arcade/
- Buy a Rapberry Pi 5
- Copy
arcade-install.shto Raspberry Pi.- open terminal on Raspberry Pi (icon in top left corner)
- enable ssh using
raspi-config - use
hostname - Ito see IP-adress - use
ssh x.x.x.x -l arcadefrom any computer - use
nano arcade-install.shand copy-paste the file contents
chmod +x arcade-install.shto make the file executable./arcade-install.shto install the arcade- Use
raspi-configto set X11 as default window manager- Wayland is default and newer than X11, but (status May 2024)
- Wayland has problems with kiosk mode of firefox and chromium-browser and
- hiding the mouse with unclutter doesn't work with Wayland
- Optional: Use the GUI to set a desktop wallpaper
We use a Raspberry Pi 5 with 8GB RAM, mounted in the official casing and a 64GB memory-card with Raspberry Pi OS pre-installed. A model with 4GB will probably do just as well for this application.
The joysticks and buttons are connected to an ipac. The ipac emulates a keyboard. The ipac is connected to the Raspberry Pi.
The monitor is connected via hdmi. The resolution of the monitor is full-hd (1920 x 1080 pixels). A higher resolution more quickly results in performance issues on the Raspberry Pi when running more complex or inefficiently coded games.
The speakers are connected to the headphones output of the monitor. We initially used a computer speaker set with a volume control button accessable through the backdoor of the cabinet. Because the speakerset didn't fit in the cabinet, we changed it to two auto speakers with a 10cm diameter and a small stereo amplifier.
The cabinet is designed and milled by a supplier in the area. We screwed the plates together, added the T-mold and mounted the electronics.
The games programmed in JavaScript using the p5js library. Games are made by our students from 4-vwo and 4-havo (aged around 15). The p5js library and all other files needed to run the game are available locally on our Arcade. The game must use keyboard input according to the control-keyboard mapping of our Arcade.
The menu is a webpage. Selection of the game works by manipulating the active element on the page. This can be done using the controls or any other keyboard.
Returning from the game to the menu is done by pushing the home button. A python programm hotkey-deamon.py is running in the background to make this happen. This way, we are not depending on the game to be able to correctly return to the main menu.
arcade-install.sh autostarts when booting the Arcade, after the GUI has started. If internet is available, the script downloads and re-installs the latest version of the arcade from github.
./bin/arcade-start.sh is launched by arcade-install. It starts the webserver that serves the menu and game files and it starts the hotkey-daemon.
./bin/arcade-home.sh is launched by arcade-start after reboot or by hotkey-daemon.py after pressing the home button. It kills all running webbrowsers and starts a new webbrowser in kiosk-mode (full screen) opening the menu page.