The Project

milo_image

Hello!

My name is Fredrik Setterberg and I am a 3D-Technician student in Sweden.
On this website I will present my latest school project – “MILO – Bamboo Arcade Controller” built from a few IKEA products and a USB arcade controller kit.
I hope that I will inspire you to build one too. Head over to the download section and download the assembly instruction.

The cost to build one controller* is around £41-£58 ( 500-700 SEK)
* IKEA material + arcade components + screws.

Background:
As a project I wanted to do something that involved design, 3d modeling and illustrations. I came up with the idea to design a retro looking arcade controller.
I decided I wanted to use bamboo as base material for the controller and started investigating where I could easily obtain it.
I noticed that IKEA had a couple of bamboo products and I decided to use them.

I decided that the goals for this project would be to:

  • Design and build a working arcade controller
  • Come up with a build process that is super easy to follow
  • Create an assembly instruction for the build – inspired by IKEA’s easy to follow assembly guides
  • Create this webpage and release everything so that others could build controllers based or inspired by my work

It has taken me quite some time to complete this project, 6-7 weeks.
A breakdown of what I have done:

  • Designed, built prototype, redesigned and built the arcade controller
  • Made 3D models of all the items used. Tools, materials and compontents
  • Done a lot of line rendering using Blender
  • Lot of post image work using Adobe Photoshop
  • Adobe Illustrator for the > 30 pages long assembly instruction
  • Writing all the text
  • Taking product pictures and pictures of all the components
  • Making this website

Software used:
IronCAD2015 – All the 3D models
Blender – Rendering 3D scenes
Freestyle – Line rendering plugin (included in Blender)
Adobe Photoshop CS6 – Editing pictures
Adobe Illustrator CS6 – Creating the assembly instructions