Students’ Arcade Machine Project Showcases Campus Research Opportunities

The mission of the Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) at NC State is to provide tools, resources and guidance to students, faculty and staff to support and promote the school’s undergraduate research community. 

This community stretches well beyond the OUR itself and includes various research projects in classes across campus. Recently, Janet Goins, the OUR’s director, found herself drawn to an arcade machine project crafted by a group of students in the College of Design’s Media Arts, Design and Technology (MADTech) program. 

“I was part of a tour group going through the different Makerspace  and studios in D.H. Hill Jr. Library,” Goins said. “This student was there, and working on this really interesting design. I got curious and asked them what they were working on. They told me that it was part of this class project where they were working on this arcade machine, and they and their team members were going to present it at an expo. I just thought it sounded really fantastic.”

Vyomini Singh, a fourth-year student in the MADTech program, was part of a group of five students working on this project for a studio class. The group came in knowing it would be tasked with making an unusual cabinet game. 

The game centers on a rag doll clown tasked with saving the theater they perform in, and the cabinet also rotates left and right and back to center. 

The group got a chance to show its game at MAGFest, a music and games festival in Maryland. 

“It was very exciting to present work next to all of these amazing, established indie game studios,” Singh said. “People were really excited about our work and really interested in it. The build itself is very unique compared to the average arcade machine. It’s very classy, very refined and regal looking, so it stood out quite a bit from the others. So that was kind of fun, and we garnered a decent amount of attention where people wanted to come play.”

Goins explained that students in STEM fields are often aware of research as an option in their discipline, but that it’s often less known to other majors such as art and design. 

Promoting this project was an opportunity to showcase research beyond some of its more typical areas. 

“This is a really exciting example of undergraduates doing research in the College of Design,” Goins said. “I also love that it showcases teamwork, and that research can be a creative endeavor that way.”

Singh hopes to work in the animation or gaming industry after graduation, and feels that this experience helped them prepare for that line of work. 

“Working in a group as someone who’s from an artist’s background can be challenging,” Singh said. “It taught me a lot about mediating conflict and also about how to redirect that and create a productive conversation, how to move forward and not get stuck on the small details.”

Going forward, the OUR hopes to continue finding and promoting these research projects across campus, and ensure that all students understand that research is an option as part of their curriculum. 

“This research is part of a course that students have done, which is one of the fantastic options to help it fit into a student’s schedule,” Goins said. “So it doesn’t necessarily have to be something that they’re working all these long hours outside of their course curriculum. There are ways to fit it into your life here, even if you’re super busy.”