I was successful in being selected to receive the Raspberry Pi kit for a portable game and have been designing a portable device to make use of the kit.
I was holding off on this declaration until I learned more about the HLH contest. I recently had an interesting conversation with the Ben Heck show team which shed some light of the situation. My schedule precludes having a working device by the video deadline but I am proceeding with the project anyway because it is an interesting project, I've invested the time to design my version and I have all the parts - except the PCB I designed. Just to reassure everyone I will comply with the contest rules, I intend to make a video of progress to date and need to make the following statements:
- Declaration of Intent
- "I intend to make a video that shows me creating a working handheld portable gaming device"
- Acknowledgment of deadline
- "I will post the video on the element14 Community site before 9:00 am CST on April 2, 2018"
- Willingness to accept prize
- "If my video is selected as one of the top ten submissions, I will receive $500.00 USD"
I really like the design that Ben and Felix implemented and since the kit is aimed at that design, I wanted to build something very similar.
In one of their interviews they discussed turning it into a product with a custom Pi-based PCB.
I am going half way there by taking all the modules in the kit and connecting them with a PCB - eliminating all wires except the battery leads.
Because the kit was supplied with slightly different components than Ben's build, the plastics will be re-designed and because the supplied battery is smaller, I should be able to make the device thinner.
I have made a few other minor changes such as the buttons, the tactile switches, the power switch and I added a volume control switch. Hopefully it will look and feel a lot like a production device, inside and outside.
The main problem with my schedule is the PCB is never going to arrive in time, but when it does, I will definitely want to assemble the system, regardless of the fact that the competition will have been over before that happens.
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