The PianoCade (from piano arcade) was a project building an arcade machine by one of the projects groups at Hackerspace NTNU that I was part of. The idea was to build an arcade machine with a piano as input controller, but with the capability of accepting other controllers as “cartridges” that would enable other corresponding games in the menu when inserted.
My main work here consisted of designing and drawings for the cabinet and partaking in building the cabinet and other mechanical parts, a well as working on and creating some of the custom electronics and their integration into the cabinet.
Sadly, a lot of different problems not caused by the project itself ended up killing off this project. Things like the workshop having to move and loosing our space where we where allowed to do the necessary woodworking, and then directly followed up by the corona pandemic close-downs, causing a stop to the necessary physical meetups needed to work on it. Our group over time lost members to other projects that wasn’t as much hindered by the same restrictions as we where, and we where cautious of accepting new members when the next pandemic close-down restrictions and thus the next stop to the work was always expected just around the corner. Eventually after long stagnation, our group decided the project was best discontinued and remaining members took on new roles in other groups and projects of the organization.