A 3D-printed, Raspberry Pi-controlled physical Pac Man game

Emanuele Coletta and friends have created a physical representation of a Pac Man game. The game characters were 3D printed and the ‘pills’ collected by Pac Man were changed to LEDs which disappear as the character rolls over them. The friends, aided by their fathers, created the playing maze out of laser-cut sections of wood. A series of small controller boards with LEDs and reed switches attached were placed underneath the surface and each character was fitted with an Arduino Nano. Pac Man himself had a magnet installed which, as it travels across the reed switches, sends signals to the LED control boards to deactivate the relevant LED. A Raspberry Pi is used by receiving all the signals about the game state and other statistics. The ‘ghosts’ are, of course, in hot pursuit and players control both Pac Man and his adversaries by moving them manually, making it a highly physical game. You can read more over on the MagPi website.

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