Bringing Pac-Man into the Real World with These Pellet-Munching Robots

Pac-Man is, of course, a much-loved classic arcade game, and since its original debut in 1980 it has been recreated many times in a number of ways. As you’d imagine, that includes updating the 2D graphics into 3D—and even bringing that into virtual reality. But, no matter how fancy those graphics get, they’re never going to be as real as an actual physical object.

With that in mind, 15-year-old Emanuele Coletta and his friends decided to build a real maze, complete with a robotic Pac-Man and ghosts. The maze itself is large, at a square-meter in size, and was constructed from laser-cut pieces of wood. LEDs are embedded in the floor of the maze, and are connected, along with reed switches, to an Arduino Mini.

Pac-Man and Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde (the ghosts) are Arduino Uno-based robots, which are controlled with 2.4GHz wireless joysticks. One player controls Pac-Man, while the other players chase after with the ghosts. The Pac-Man robot has a magnet, which triggers the reed switches, turns off the corresponding LED, and adds a point. The score is then displayed on a monitor with a Java application.