In the past few years Kintaro and RetroFlag have released a bunch of Nintendo-inspired cases for the Raspberry Pi 3, and they are all pretty darn impressive (personally I’m holding out for a Sega Genesis version). Thought I would design a case for the tiny Raspberry Pi Zero based on the R.O.B. toy.
Nothing too fancy, the Pi Zero would sit in the base of the robot. When powered on, R.O.B.’s eyes and indicator light would illuminate. The robot is a static mold, no articulation or robotics, mostly because he is very small.
Speaking of small, this robot is tiny, about 3 x 3 x 3 inches so it would almost be in scale with the NES Classic. This design could be embiggened for the Raspberry Pi 3 or other single board computers that are larger in size.
There is ample room for heatsinks and fans, but I’ve never needed a fan for my Zero so I might be overthinking things here. The lone USB port would feed power to the LED lights, so a wireless Bluetooth controller is recommended for gaming.
But wait, there’s more!
Another configuration for this case is to house an OTG Adapter for ne’er-do-wells who have modified their NES Classics to play games from a USB thumb drive.
There are many OTG Adapters on the market right now, but I made this unique version to accept a USB thumb drive and to power R.O.B.’s lights.
If this ever became a product I don’t know if I would sell it with both configurations in one package, or as two separate products. Probably the latter, I’m not a fan of waste. Then again, versatility has its appeal. Argh I’m overthinking things again.
I did ponder adding a mini projector to his head, but that would complicate things too much (also he would need to be bigger in size).