Mario Kart Automator

The end goal of this project was to unlock the gold glider in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which requires 5,000 coins in total. This process was proving to be a grind manually so we set up a little system to automate this process.

Mario Kart has auto acceleration and auto steering features built in, so this can be utilized to auto-complete races as the characters collect coins. However, there is no automated system to select "next race" at the end of each race. This is where the required hardware came into play.

Each race was determined to take at most, 3 minutes with characters auto accelerating and auto steering. Enter: a single solenoid left over from design lab and an Arduino. The original plan was a simple coded timer to activate the Arduino every 3 minutes. Of course, its never this easy. The solenoid was not strong enough to activate the button.

The lack of supplies and funding begins to show in our college dorm room. The quickest and cheapest method to provide more power to the solenoid were five C and D batteries in series. Soldered in place, they were just enough to let the solenoid push the button. A paper clamp and some duct tape later and it functioned perfectly.