Raspberry Pi safe and warm in TINY Lego fortress
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While punters have been crafting their own homemade Raspberry Pi cases since the miniature Linux box was first revealed, one inventive youngster has now shown how Lego can be a perfect fit too.
12-year-old student named only as "Biz" has had her Raspberry Pi Lego case instructions posted on the company's official blog, demonstrating how the diddy-PC fits perfectly in a Lego enclosure with a dimension of 9 x 13 blocks.
It is certainly a more child-friendly case than the custom Marlboro Raspberry Pi box that one chancer upped to eBay.
If Biz's construction prowess has inspired you to reach for the Lego box, but you are still waiting for your Raspberry Pi to turn up, then why not get building your very own working Lego assault rifle?
Or even better, create an MC Escher inspired Lego setup, such as Paul Vermeesch’s impressive Star Wars construction below. Now that's what I call a block-tical illusion. ®
COMMENTS
It's already doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing!
If people are getting passionate about building cases for their Raspberry Pis, that's surely a good sign. Because the whole intention in the first place, was for the Raspberry Pi to inspire creativity.
Kids absolutely should be building stuff (and to a certain extent it doesn't matter exactly what stuff -- it's the act of building that's important), not just dreaming about being WAGs or reality TV stars. Some of the more out-there cases, in their turn, will no doubt inspire some equally out-there apps.
It's very easy to get cynical, but once in a while something comes along and reminds you that there is still hope for humanity.
Re: "More child friendly"
Oh, for God's sake...
I used to chew random bits of lego (usually those + shaped rods for the gearings) while contemplating which parts to put where. If it affected me, I'm pretty sure it affected me a lot less than additives in food, lead in petrol (as was the way back then) and all manner of god-knows-what in the ground that was played in, with, and around.
Be easy enough to do a vented lid; I can think of two or three methods right off the bat, depending on what parts are available. That plus a couple of 1x1 headlight bricks and a grille on the side should probably do fine -- that 700MHz SoC doesn't put out that much heat, does it?
I am legally obligated to point out the Lego Antikythera mechanism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLPVCJjTNgk
One of the big benefits of the Pi is that the SoC (BCM2835) consumes only 1.5W. Even in completely sealed enclosures, it's difficult to get it to exceed 45C, partly because the board itself acts as a giant passive heatsink. A quick Google suggests the melting point of ABS plastic (such as that used in Lego bricks) is around 105C. I'd suggest that the holes left in the enclosure for connectors to poke through would provide more than adequate passive airflow.
I've just spent the last 5 minutes researching and justifying the use of Lego as a system enclosure. See, IT can be fun.
