SEGA’s Daytona USA is that big orange arcade racing machine you remember from the 90s that still seems to hang on in cinemas and pizza joints worldwide. Its controls may be floaty and physics unrealistic, but it’s probably the one racing game that almost everyone has played at one point or other. [Tom Tilley] decided to build a PVC racing rig for the game during his travels in Thailand.
PVC pipe is used to whip up the frames for the budget simulator, inside which each player sits. Different sizes of PVC pipe and various adapters are used to create a basic steering wheel, to which a potentiometer is attached, while the centering mechanism is simply a rubber band. The pedals are built similarly and fitted with microswitches. The build relies on a cheap USB gamepad that mimics the typical PlayStation Dual Shock design, with the pot and switches wired in place of the existing thumbstick and buttons. A computer running the PC version of Daytona USA is then used to complete the setup, along with a projector for split-screen fun.
It’s certainly not a high-end simulator by any means, but for the price of some pipes and cheap controllers, [Tom] was able to create a two-player racing rig for a fraction of the cost to hire the real arcade machine for a weekend. The kids that playtested the system certainly seemed to have a good time, as well. We’ve seen similar low-tech builds before, too – with impressive results. Video after the break.
I don’t do video games, but everyone seemed to be having a good time, so good job
Cheers! I built these a few years ago now and we took two of the cars/controllers into some Thai high schools during their national science week as well as into some orphanages for the kids to pay – it was a lot of fun.
I really should use PVC more in projects: they are like lego bricks for adults.
To build the same cars here in Australia would have been a lot more expensive but it was a commonly used material with handy connectors in Thailand.
That’s really clever use of materials. Well done!
Thanks! It took a few iterations to get to the initial design and then each of the three cars we built had their own unique tweaks but the convenient thing about building with PVC pipe is you can easily make changes with a hacksaw.
Hackaday also posted about one of my other PVC pipe projects back in 2012 – some custom controllers for Puzzle Bobble/Bust-a-Move:
https://hackaday.com/2012/11/08/bust-a-move-physical-controller/
This is brilliant! As a guy who grew up with this game, it’s lovely that there’s a lot of people enjoying this awesome game.
Having said that, you can use an emulator to run the arcade version on PC, and you can actually link upto 8 PCs for awesome 8 player action – https://youtu.be/u9STo4_qSf4
The video shows 6 player link, but you can do up to 8 players. In fact, recently there’s even a way to play Daytona USA 2 for up to 8 players – https://youtu.be/Rajj-uS0Atg – again, the video only shows 4 player link in this case.
That’s very cool – thanks! I used the PC version of the game but recreating something of the multi-player arcade experience would be great fun.