Image Credit: Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Sebastian Bidegain, Scrapyard Challenge Workshops
Imagine playing some of your favorite classic arcade games, such as Street Fighter, Donkey Kong, and Super Mario, on a controller you built yourself! Well, you don’t have to imagine it. It’s a reality that you can experience at SIGGRAPH 2025 in Vancouver. We caught up with Jonah Brucker-Cohen and Sebastian Bidegain, the contributors of “Labs Hands-On Class: Scrapyard Challenge: Classic Arcade Game Controller Redesign Workshop” to learn more about what attendees can look forward to this August.
SIGGRAPH: We are excited to see you share “Scrapyard Challenge: Classic Arcade Game Controller Redesign Workshop” with the SIGGRAPH audience in Vancouver. What inspired you to the Labs program?
Jonah was the SIGGRAPH 2024 Labs Chair and has been running hardware hacking workshops with Katherine Moriwaki called “Scrapyard Challenge” for over 20 years (since 2003). Naturally, the idea of running the workshops at Labs was a perfect fit. Jonah and team actually ran a wearable version of the workshop during the Studio at SIGGRAPH 2005 in Los Angeles.
Seeing the excitement of Labs workshops last year and when it was Studio/Guerilla Studio in past versions of SIGGRAPH, the potential to make an impact with a Labs workshop is very high, especially for people with little or no hardware skills prior to coming to the conference. Jonah thought it was time to bring the Scrapyard Challenge workshop to Labs and has been running the gaming version of the workshop that he developed with Sebastian at Cornell Tech for the past three years.
SIGGRAPH: Let’s chat about the hands-on workshop itself. What is the genesis of this initiative? What inspired you to begin building classic game/arcade controllers?
Jonah was a visiting scholar at Cornell Tech in Manhattan for the 2022-2023 academic year. During that time, he was talking to Niti Parikh, the director of the Cornell Tech Maker Lab, about running a hardware hacking workshop with Cornell Tech students on campus. During the pandemic, Jonah spent time building several home arcade cabinets using Raspberry Pi computers, Retropie emulation software, and modifiable Arcade 1UP arcade cabinets. He decided to convert the Pi interface to one that was more suitable for people to design their own controllers in a workshop setting.
He was introduced to Sebastian Bidegain, Cornell Tech Maker Lab Design and Tech Lead, and they worked together to realize the first version of the Arcade Controller Design Workshop that was held at Cornell Tech on 30 November 2022. Since that first workshop, the Arcade version of the Scrapyard Challenge has been held 11 times in three countries.
SIGGRAPH: Can you talk about the materials needed to build these controllers? How are you finding them? What materials are you using to build these controllers?
Because they focus on the reuse and recycling of abandoned or forgotten objects into new forms of interactive devices, the Scrapyard Challenge workshops are predicated on using local surroundings to source materials. Materials range from cast-off children’s toys with moving parts from toy vehicles to playground sandbox toys to musical instruments and old electronics, stereo equipment, and digital devices. The workshop also works well with non-electronic objects such as furniture, clothing, packaging materials, and transportation devices like scooters, roller skates, bicycles, etc.
Since the goal of the workshop is for the participants to be as creative as possible, the workshop takes nothing for granted and asks people to be as creative as possible with the objects they see around them. The main rue of the Scrapyard Challenge workshops is that nothing is really “junk” to be thrown out, and everything can be made into a working controller.
SIGGRAPH: Is there a specific controller you enjoy building the most? Are there any that are trickier to build than others?
The controllers created during the workshop always depend on what materials we find on-site, so this changes a lot. However, over the years, people have gravitated to several different types of controllers which are popular.
One example is using a turntable as a controller that you can spin by affixing several pieces of aluminum foil to the top of the record platter and using the needle as the contact point. When the needle connects to two foil strips on the record player, a connection is made which, in turn, triggers a switch. This same principle has been used many times with toy cars by coating their wheels with foil and having them drive over active contact points to trigger a switch. Also, people have consistently used furniture and toys as joysticks. As an example, at the Cornell Tech workshop, someone used a large exercise ball to lean back and forth and trigger up/down/left/right controls.
SIGGRAPH: A fun aspect of this Labs hands-on workshop is that anyone can participate regardless of technical knowledge or expertise. What should SIGGRAPH 2025 attendees look forward to most during your session?
The Scrapyard Challenge workshops were designed for people with little or no knowledge of electronics or interface design upon entering the workshop. This lessens barriers to entry for even the most squeamish people who have never done any physical computing projects or built electronic circuits with their bare hands.
Attendees should arrive with an open mind, and they will be split into groups since we will supply four interface boards. Each attendee can control an aspect of the interaction for the game or games they choose, such as an action button or one or more directional buttons. We encourage attendees to create “logic gates” with their switches, which allow one switch to activate only if another one is activated. This will create more complex interaction and more dynamic group-based controllers.
So, what are you going to use to make a controller? We can’t wait to see what is created during this session at SIGGRAPH 2025. SIGGRAPH 2025 is filled with content that spans a plethora of topics within computer graphics and interactive techniques. Register today to secure your spot as a co-creator of our future!
Jonah Brucker-Cohen is an artist, writer, and Associate Professor at Lehman College / CUNY. He received his Ph.D. from Trinity College Dublin and his artwork has been exhibited at venues such as SFMOMA, Canadian Museum of Contemporary Art, MOMA, ICA London, Whitney Museum of American Art, ZKM Museum, Palais du Tokyo, Tate Modern, Ars Electronica, Transmediale, and more. His writing has appeared in publications such as WIRED and Make and his Scrapyard Challenge workshops have been held in over 15 countries on 5 continents.
Sebastian Bidegain (@voidfillstudio) is an artist and designer at Cornell Tech’s MakerLAB. He utilizes a range of techniques including 3D printing, mold-making, and electroplating to craft sculptures and objects. He enjoys repurposing electronics, breathing new life into them through whimsical designs such as his Gamecube bluetooth speaker (GAINCUBE). His portfolio includes lamps, furniture, jewelry, and wearable electronics, has been showcased during NYCxDESIGN week.
