The A E S T H E T I C Mii [Hackathon Project]

MikaMaslak

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Aesthetic alterations were made to the the portablize me theme, I made sure to reference this software created by this community anywhere it was appropriate.


First off there are 2 very important things about this project:

-This project was done for a hackathon (hack PSU) where you start with a fresh project and must be done in 24 hours (which totaled 20 hours without break) more importantly no form posts for help because there was no time to wait.
-This was my first portablization ever.

Work progression:
  • hours 1-4: Operating system, homebrew, game compiling, tear down.
  • hours 4-8: Amp testing, breadboarding and part demoing and designing.
  • hours 8-14: Soldering, shielding, assembling and crying
  • hours 14-20: metal forming, casing debugging and proclaiming of completion.
  • hours 20-21: formal write up and event submission.
  • hours 21-24: napping before presenting.
No I did not do drugs to stay awake just a lot of caffeine products

features:
  • 7 inch SD car dvd screen.
  • 9800mAh battery, with hard disconnect switch.
  • runs at average 1.3 Amps
  • can be charged and play, hooked up to a standard TV, still behaves like a regular wii, no COMs were sacrificed/ no trimming out of fear.
  • contains 250gb hard drive in parallel with USB 1 for the PortablizeMii Op files and games
  • An absolutely Aesthetic Arizona tea can shell (I am so sorry for how hacky it is)
  • 6W speakers with variable volume (no longer supported burned out the op amp in my hand with an overload)
  • Removed disk drive, trimed heat syncs, left wifi support in as a shortcoming when compiling.
  • IR LEDs
  • did you see the tea cans?
  • it's award winning, third place overall at the hackathon with over 700 attendees (only marked completed projected could have competed though which was <100 of the participants).
  • parts costed about $150 but received a $300 prize


As shown above the left and right sides are electrical tape covered. The top and back however are made out of metal formed Arizona green tea cans, being that "making my case was done within the last 2 hours, it's still pretty ok.




In terms of internals this is the best I got to show, with only note that the 80Gb drive was upgraded to a 250Gb unit. My biggest want out of this was no trimming because I could not do it within the time frame. By this point I had already burned out my opp amp so speakers were cut from the design and a mono audio out wire was put into an unamplified speaker jack. The wiring of everything was extremely frustrating under the stress of the situation, it's pretty messy because I couldn't tell how much extra length the case would need.



My workstation; Lab PSU with auto short cut off, Microscope asst soldering, hot air gun:

Some of the challenges I was faced with was 0 tolerance for mistakes or hiccups or else I would be unable to complete the project. I made a want list and it was trimmed down to only the essential things: power, cooling, video, and input. Board Trimming, component addition/removing was unfortunately not available to me given the constraints and even the wifi had to remain because of accidentally not opting to remove it. 3D printing a case also would not have been possible unless gotten done beforehand which certainly would have been allowed but not quite in the 24 hour spirit of things.

Am I proud of it? Certainly, because it accomplished what I wanted it to and it didn't break because boi did I think I was gonna break it.

Nonetheless it's a pile of crap compared to other project on here but I would like to raise the challenge how well could you do a portablization in 24 hours or less?

In the near future I hope to make an A E S T H E T I C Mii 2 done the right way with all the bells and whistles and time it needs.

Acknowledgements:
As I said I built this myself alone however some users in this awesome community helped me with question I've ask prior to starting to arm me with the knowledge I needed, so thank you...
@Shank
@JacksonS
@Herma

Here is the link to the contest submission if you want to check it out https://devpost.com/software/a-e-s-t-h-e-t-i-c-mii-portable-wii And a pic of the sick medal I got.
 
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cheese

the tallest memer in town
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I've done a couple hackathons and boy howdy does caffeine help. For a first portable in less than a day, I'd say that's pretty decent. The actually taped together look is perfect for a hackathon too

It was a good idea to not trim or anything, since that takes a good amount of time to get right, and troubleshooting would easily put you over your time crunch.
 

fibbef

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Neat post! As we get to the point where portablizers are perfecting their craft and making better and better portables, quick-as-you-can projects like this become all the more interesting. Congrats on placing top 3, by the way!
 
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