A few years ago, [Mark] built an arcade cabinet into a low table. But once his new gaming buddy [Grayson] came along and started crawling, it wasn’t practical to have a low, pointy table around. Trouble is, [Mark] had already given [Grayson] his first taste with a Thomas the Tank Engine game. Since the kid was hooked, [Mark] rebuilt the table arcade into a toddler-sized arcade cabinet that they can both use.
The brain — a Raspberry Pi running RetroPie — should be familiar to most of our readers. [Mark] found the perfect crappy old monitor when they were upgrading at his office, and found some nice speakers to give it good bass. We love the details like the chrome edging, and especially the kick bar/footrest along the bottom. It can be difficult to decide how to decorate a multi-arcade cabinet, so [Mark] went the sticker bomb route with 700 of them randomly distributed and safe from toddler wear and tear under five coats of clear wood varnish.
We think this looks great, especially since [Mark] doesn’t have a workshop and cut all that MDF by hand on a jigsaw in the kitchen. Check out the happy train engineer after the break.
Maybe once [Grayson] is old enough to break tablets, [Mark] can build a gaming tab-inet out of it. Just sayin’.
It’s a slippery slope. HAD October 6, 2022: [Mark] builds a slightly bigger arcade cabinet.
Haha, you’re not wrong there. But, you know, I’m happy to build a new, updated one, every few years – keeps me busy ;-)
How did your wife feel about using a saw to cut MDF in the kitchen? ;)
I do regret exposing our daughter (when she was a toddler) to DVD “babysitter” videos (Baby Einstein, Caillou, et al) as I believe they played a significant role in her phone addiction now!
I’ve made a similarily small arcade cab for my son, about 10 years ago. Mine was based upon Mortal Kombat, not a psychedelic migraine.
Could add extendable legs to get more years of use out of it as he grows.