This crane machine is hooked up to a Raspberry Pi so you can play it from home
UK game room company Liberty Games has figured out a novel way for anyone to play one of its stand-alone games: it’s hooked up a crane machine to the internet for anyone to control, calling it Santa Claws. As a bonus, any toys caught translate into real dollars (or pounds, rather) that will be donated to St Mungo’s, a charity that provides support to the homeless.
To get it running, Liberty Games took a Sierra crane machine and attached a camera to the front. This allowed the company to livestream the crane, but then they needed people to be able to control it through a web browser. For this, they used PiFace and PiRack to code an API for the crane that allows its functions to be controlled remotely, and also send feedback when a game is...