[Garnet Hertz], a professor and “artist in residence” at UC Irvine, built a drivable Outrun arcade cabinet for an experiment in augmented reality.

The old fiberglass and wood cabinet was hacked up and the motors, wheels, and drive train from an electric golf cart were stuffed inside. The original steering wheel and pedals were used for the controls. Although the top speed of the in-game car is about 180 mph, that was brought down to a reasonable 13 miles per hour.

The build doesn’t run on the original 68k processor. Instead, custom software is used to take real-world image data from two webcams on top of the cabinet. These images are then converted into Outrun sprites and displayed on the monitor. The software proportionally changes the speed of the in-game car, but it seems the difference between the game speed and real-life speed would be a little disconcerting. Although it’s not a real world track with the corkscrew loops of Race Drivin’, it’s still an interesting experiment in augmented reality.

Right now, we’re trying to figure out how to put this in our car. Outrun is now being reverse engineered, and the road layer code is complete. Does anyone want to take a stab at that build?

Everyone Remembers Free day right? [The Ideanator's] Bus Pirate came in such a nice red box – he decided to make it his permanent case.

[Chico] is in the middle of making a CNC, but decided to make some music with the steppers in the mean time.

What looks like an old wooden box is actually [Ludvig's] super sweet retro arcade cabinet. Complete with a giant emergency stop red button.

Who says Legos are dead? [Carl] used them to create a simple and cheap diffraction grating projector. Including video!

[Torchris] used an Ethernet shield exactly as it was designed, sending data over Ethernet. Still a nice hack for those needing help working with Ethernet shields and Arduino.

Finally [Robert] let us know about a friends Arduino Binary Clock. But we think his elegant use of tape and a sand blaster to engrave glass is cooler.

[Pocket Lucho], the builder of mini arcade cabinets, is back with another build. This time it’s a miniature Neo Geo arcade machine (translated). The build is very compact and neat. He attached the control panel and the PS one display using magnets to make the wiring more accessible. It has video out and second player input too. You’ll find an assembly video embedded below along with a trial run.

He’s using GamEx as a front end for a multitude of emulators, including MESS which emulates tons of old desktops like Commodores and Apples. The cabinet, while not as elegant as the Retro Space, wins major geek points for the cup holder.

[via Engadget]