Handheld Galaga
Throughout my Object class in Fall 2022, I created a handheld version of Galaga with an arduino microcontroller. The idea came from my love of the game as a child, and the fact that I wanted to challenge myself with creating a game with somewhat complex code.
In the first iteration of the project, I chose to create an enclosure that somewhat had the arcade feel, which I modeled using SolidWorks and later 3D printed.
The first iteration wasn’t satisfactory to me, as the enclosure wasn’t all that secure and the pressure pad used to “shoot” wasn’t supported, so the user had to press unusually hard to get to the top row of the screen. In addition, there were a few bugs in the code that I wanted to fix.
I worked with a partner, Ananya Tandel, on the second iteration, and in this case, two minds were better than one.
The second iteration’s enclosure is significantly smaller and is made out of laser cut wood. This gave a sleeker feel to the project and made it more handheld. In addition, we experimented with alternative controls, which added a new layer of interactivity.
As can be seen in the video, the user turns a knob to control the ship, and must make noise to “shoot.”
In the future, I would like to further improve this project by removing bugs in the code and making the enclosure sleeker, more decorated, and easier to hold.
To see full documentation, see our Instructables Post.
Cayla Kennedy 