Project BrainGear

Marcello

This project follows the logic that “dad built a unique computer especially for me” feels so much better than “dad bought me a pc”…
The original idea was born around the Raspberry PI, however I quickly realised that I would need a much powerful engine… and the UP Board came about.
It is made of laser-cut Plexiglas (bent with the air gun of my soldering station), a 13 inch full HD screen+controller board off ebay, a home made Li-ion battery pack, a difficult-to-find Li-ion charging controller that allows simultaneously charging and using the battery, a self-designed power board to handle startup/shutdown logic and the 5V/12V needs. The spare space was intended for an SSD but as USB3 has issues I gave up for the moment..
Software is a Mac-flavoured Ubuntu with UP kernel and loads of cool software including Snap4Arduino and a home built wifi connected board with plenty of sensors for experiments on IoT.
The design is rather pleasant and I personally don’t think the pictures do justice as the transparency is difficult to capture.
My son loves it so I thought of sharing… should anyone be interested in the details, feel free to drop me a message.

DCleri

That is really amazing!

Thanks MarcFinns for sharing your UP based project!