LED Matrix Animation Frame

A few years ago I saw a really interesting project on kickstarter by Jeremy Williams called the Game Frame.

It uses a grid of RGB LEDs to display pixel art. I thought it was an awesome idea, and looked beautiful.
I couldn't afford to buy one at the time, but now it might make a nice project to put together my own version.

There were a couple of these LED frames around back then. The 'PIXEL' by Al Linke even had a kit version.
The PIXEL had 32x32 pixels vs the Game Frame's 16x16. But the Game Frame did have a nice wooden case.

From reading the docs for the PIXEL, I found out that 32x32 LED panels are widely available and cheap too.

In fact, from my initial google-ing I also discovered a nice Raspberry Pi library for driving these displays.
It was looking like building my own LED frame would be pretty straightforward...

SNESPi - 3D Printed Raspberry Pi Mini SNES(s)

Last year I built a mini NES console using a Raspberry Pi, an NFC reader and a 3D-printed case.
An obvious follow-up project would be to make a mini SNES with the Raspberry Pi.

I probably have more childhood fondness for the Super Nintendo than I do the original NES.
Some of my best gaming memories are playing co-op Turtles in Time and Diddy's Kong Quest with my brother.

I grew-up with the Super Famicom-style European SNES and only learned about the markedly different North American model as an adult much later...

This fascinated me, there's such a contrast between the two styles. I wanted to make a mini version of both.

Mini NES Classic Updates

NESPi - my Mini NES Classic Raspberry Pi games console

It was inevitable... I have a Raspberry Pi, I have a 3D printer, I'm a huge nerd...

At some point I was going to print a case for it in the shape of the old Nintendo Entertainment System.

In the end, this project turned into more of a love-letter to the NES than just printing a case.
I learnt a lot of new things about Linux, 3D design, wrote my first Python program and had a blast doing it...

Thermoelectric Drinks-Can Cooler

I am a big fan of Ben Heck. Way back in 2011, Ben made a Super Can Cooler on his YouTube channel and I'd always thought it was a neat idea, something I'd like to build myself one day.

At the time I didn't have an easy way to make the aluminium pieces. Recently though, I had a chance to make my own can-cooler inspired by Ben's version.

The idea with this device is that a drinks can fits snugly in the aluminium 'coldsink' and a pair of peltier modules(TECs) pull heat from the aluminium and dissipate it to the room, cooling down the can in the process.