(There is a TL;DR at the bottom.)
I have come up with a cheap, quick, and easy portable that I would like to "make". I say "make" because it actually is already made, I am simply modifying it. I found a Q*bert mini arcade game at a thrift store for a couple bucks, and I played around with it for a bit, but ultimately the controls just weren't very comfortable, and the shape is pretty clunky, so it was put up in the closet and forgotten. Cut to about 3 years later, and I discovered this website, along with portablizing in general. I would like to make a Wii portable, but the other day, I found this little game, remembered the ~15 minutes of fun I had before it became too uncomfortable, and decided that redesigning it would be a good warm-up to making a full-blown Wii portable. Here is a link to an amazon listing for the mini arcade game, and here is a link to a quick video of me playing it (please excuse the poor video and gameplay quality.) The design is going to be inspired by the Gameboy Advance. I can start on this pretty much immediately, but I was wondering if this was something that would be eligible for entry into the summer building competition if I wait. The thing is, the game itself is already a thing, by which I mean I am simply rearranging stuff. I wont be trimming any boards to make it smaller, just getting rid of empty space. The only modifications I will be making to the circuitry itself are:
(1) A custom pcb for the buttons since they will be on opposite sides of the screen instead of below the screen.
(2) Replacing the joystick, which internally is just a rotated d-pad, with an actual d-pad to make it more comfortable.
(3) Replacing the 3 AA batteries with Li-Po cells and a micro-USB charger port.
As implied before, I will be making a brand new case, which will be 3D-printed, and will look something like this: (note - this is just a rough drawing; it is not to scale, nor is it the definitive final design.)
TL;DR: I would like to redesign this Q*bert mini arcade game so that I can have a lot more fun playing it, and I was wondering if it would be an eligible entry into the summer building competition, based on the modifications I am going to be making to an already "portable" console.
I have come up with a cheap, quick, and easy portable that I would like to "make". I say "make" because it actually is already made, I am simply modifying it. I found a Q*bert mini arcade game at a thrift store for a couple bucks, and I played around with it for a bit, but ultimately the controls just weren't very comfortable, and the shape is pretty clunky, so it was put up in the closet and forgotten. Cut to about 3 years later, and I discovered this website, along with portablizing in general. I would like to make a Wii portable, but the other day, I found this little game, remembered the ~15 minutes of fun I had before it became too uncomfortable, and decided that redesigning it would be a good warm-up to making a full-blown Wii portable. Here is a link to an amazon listing for the mini arcade game, and here is a link to a quick video of me playing it (please excuse the poor video and gameplay quality.) The design is going to be inspired by the Gameboy Advance. I can start on this pretty much immediately, but I was wondering if this was something that would be eligible for entry into the summer building competition if I wait. The thing is, the game itself is already a thing, by which I mean I am simply rearranging stuff. I wont be trimming any boards to make it smaller, just getting rid of empty space. The only modifications I will be making to the circuitry itself are:
(1) A custom pcb for the buttons since they will be on opposite sides of the screen instead of below the screen.
(2) Replacing the joystick, which internally is just a rotated d-pad, with an actual d-pad to make it more comfortable.
(3) Replacing the 3 AA batteries with Li-Po cells and a micro-USB charger port.
As implied before, I will be making a brand new case, which will be 3D-printed, and will look something like this: (note - this is just a rough drawing; it is not to scale, nor is it the definitive final design.)
TL;DR: I would like to redesign this Q*bert mini arcade game so that I can have a lot more fun playing it, and I was wondering if it would be an eligible entry into the summer building competition, based on the modifications I am going to be making to an already "portable" console.
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