Retro case design for RPi built with my kids

[crashmk92]

My 6 and 3 year old daughters and I have been really excited about this project, and started building a "retro" box to house their RPi when we get it.

Our goal was to go "self contained" and throw back to something vintage, and a time when people were ALL ABOUT learning and CREATING something new.

Hopefully some folks see some resemblance to the Apple 1 that Woz and Jobs built in 77. We lined the inside in black felt, and ordered "arcade pcb stands" to screw into the bottom and elevate the RPi PCB off the wood by 1".  We also ordered a 12 foot HDMI cable to coil up and plug into the family TV in the living room.  The 4 port powered hub is mounted under the keyboard.   Both cables (power/hdmi) will run out of a hole in the back (not yet drilled).

Hope somebody gets as much of a kick out of this as me and my little girls have.  Oh yeah, and we wood burned the RPi logo into the side.

Cheers!

Joe

 

[monkeyra]

That's brilliant! Great bit of workmanship, especially the little raspberry logo, neat touch.

Takes me back to the ZX81 days....  

[Phil Spiegel]

How about this as a 'retro' case whilst at the same time showing the reduced footprint of the Pi ( look at the Avatar - I still can't get the image upload to work)

It was marketed when such generic desktop PCs were common,and is currently an AM radio with the loudspeaker in the monitor screen.

Approx 90mm (w)x 130 (d)mm x 100mm (h)

A 3.5/4" 4x3 video LCD panel should just fit in the monitor box

As long as a suitably large fontsize for the console screen size can be set.

It will 'fit' well as part of a 'G-Scale' (1:22.5) Model Railway Shunting Puzzle

(3m long)- and can then display pictures of the wagons etc (RFid tag detection - via serial input (>USB)

In ye olde days Spectrums ZX80/81 etc replaced 'flipcards' - now with oversize computers,  flipscards are back...but not for long?

[steviewevie]

Love it !

[meltwater]

USNavyChief82 said:


My 6 and 3 year old daughters and I have been really excited about this project, and started building a "retro" box to house their RPi when we get it.


Really like it, excellent work!  The last photo made me laugh, your 3 year old looks slightly bemused by your project (I think they are excited for you! lol)...

It is a good idea, since they can understand what goes into it, but it will be safe/strong enough for them to use.

Anyway, I know first hand how much they enjoy such stuff, my 5 year old daughter was fascinated when I was re-building my pc a few days ago, asking all about each of the parts and was overjoyed when I let her tighten some screws for me.  Unfortunately she was VERY annoyed with me because I had finished it the next day and she wanted to put the power supply in for me (I felt so bad...)!

She keeps asking me when she can help me with "my experiments" now.  My wife will kill me (no wonder the garage is full...), but I might just have one of those 1000in1 electronic kits in the garage which might be put into service at some point.

If you want to post more details of how you get on, I think it would be great to add to the wiki too.

[AndyInSurrey]

Well done, as you say it does indeed look like the initial Apple#1 case that Woz and Jobs put together. It recaptures the computing pioneer period.

[Davespice]

USNavyChief82, very good work mate.  I really like it, and I love the way you have made it a family activity

[AshleyD]

Well done; it's great to see that you're encouraging your kids to get "hands-on" and creative at such an early age. Too often parents will leave their kids to their own devices and not take an active interest in their development (my own mother is a culprit of this, much as I love her)!

It's brilliant that the Pi has started inspiring creativity before it has even  fully taken off.

[oztrailrider]

Wow that looks brilliant. You've done a fantastic job and great to see your kids involved too. I hope you get your Pi soon so you can start playing with it!.

[TheCrazyInventor]

Ahh, that looks very nice. The color of the wood is perfect for this project.

I'm planning a little wooden case myself, too. I want to keep it as small and compact as possible. I'd like to have access to the connectors from the outside, but I'm not quite sure about how I'm going to measure all that. I also want to integrate the power supply into the case. Less hastle that way when moving it around... And then I need to figure out some elegant way to keep the RPi in place. Is there a specsheet with the exact dimensions available somewhere?

[meltwater]

Got me thinking about making one too, since I have a spare USB keyboard, parts of a USB hub and some old amplified speakers.  Should be able to fit it in the footprint of the keyboard (with a little extra depth).

Will mount the RPi at the back, with HDMI sticking out, the audio can be wired directly to the speakers (perhaps with switch for headphones), the usb can be wired to the hub and keyboard (with the other hub output ports routed to the edge).  Then can use case mounting for the Video output and LAN, which shouldn"t be a major problem.

Finally, share the power from the USB to the hub/speakers/RPi, or use multiple usb supplies if needed.

Can make the top lift off easily enough, so that it is still easy to tinker with.  A few cable ties should be enough to hold things in place if I can't think of anything else.

[SN]

Now I downloaded the paper template from the other thread and 'built' my own this morning….



Someone mentioned zx81 earlier in this thread - I no longer have my old zx81 (I think it was killed prior to me getting a Spectrum) but I do still have the Fuller Case....

[killor]

So good!!

[scep]

Nice!