Versus Box Arcade Cabinet
VersusBox is an arcade cabinet built mostly from recycled materials. It includes a dedicated system for emulation and running native x86 games.
It was built with the help of Patrick Abati (sitelec.org) for the construction of the cabinet.
Building the Cabinet
Cabinet Body
The plans were designed in FreeCAD. Here is a preview of the design (interactive 3D view):
All resources, along with building advice, can be found on the GitHub page.
The structural parts were made from 15 mm plywood panels, as this material is resistant to warping over time and to ambient humidity. The control panel was made from 1 cm MDF, covered with a 0.75 mm plexiglass sheet, bent to cover the entire visible surface. The bending of the plexiglass prevents deformation due to ambient temperature changes, which is why it is not recommended to only cover the top surface.
The screen protection is a 6 mm Securit glass panel — plexiglass was avoided as it is prone to micro-scratches when cleaning. The glass is screwed in place and protected from pressure with soft plastic washers.
A space is available at the back of the cabinet to fit a PC. Underneath, wheels of at least 7 cm can be added, slightly raising the cabinet but making it easier to move. Inside at the bottom, there is a 0.04 m³ space for installing a subwoofer.
Decoration
The decoration was created using Gimp and Inkscape. 
It is a patchwork of various raster images of characters found on the Internet. These images were vectorized with Inkscape to create the color-zone effect. 
The background, also vectorized with the same method, was created from images of the Milky Way taken by the Planck space telescope at different wavelengths. This vectorization effect is more pronounced: 
The graphic elements were produced at 1:1 scale in 150 dpi and printed on matte monomeric vinyl with UV lamination.
Software Setup
Debian Linux is used to run EmulationStation, RetroArch, and PC games. Here are the tutorials to follow:
Setup on PC (PDF version)
Setup on a dedicated PC.