For those who performed with LEGOs within the Eighties, you most likely bear in mind your spaceman having a pc display screen brick for management duties. In fact, these bricks had been tiny and plastic, with no precise circuitry or dynamic show capabilities.
Quick ahead to late 2022, and NASA and the number of non-public area corporations which have emerged could not have constructed your LEGO rocket in full scale. Nevertheless, YouTuber James Brown (AKA Historic) has been in a position to deliver this tiny show to life, embedding a miniature OLED display screen and RP2040 in somewhat angular brick.
The important thing to this miniaturization, past very small computing/show elements, is that the PCB is designed in 4 interlocking sections that connect collectively within the measurement of a brick laptop. An accelerometer was additionally added by way of extra wiring as a little bit of an afterthought. The 4 sections had been soldered along with the assistance of 3D-printed jigs, and the display screen setup was examined to ensure it labored exterior of the brick.
From there, Brown used one other 3D-printed meeting, together with LEGO rods to embed the circuitry in a brand new resin-cast laptop display screen brick. The outcomes are a darkish translucent brick that sits on prime of an precise LEGO energy brick, permitting the show to point out transferring spacey photos. You can too faucet on the highest of the brick’s nubs to interface with the display screen to alter what it’s displaying.
The construct is printed within the video under. Whereas particular particulars are slim, the outcomes are really beautiful!
