Halloween 2014 – a functioning gameboy

For Halloween this year, I decided to step up my costume game and make a fully functioning gameboy costume:

Video:

A ton of people who saw the costume wouldn’t believe it worked until they pushed a button….. but the reaction was always priceless

 

Click ‘Continue Reading’ to see how the magic works!

How it works:

The costume itself is made from a large shoebox, a little samsung netbook, an arduino, pushbutton switches and a metric ton of hot glue.  The arduino due polls the gamepad buttons, and converts them to keyboard presses with the arduino ‘Keyboard’  library.  The netbook runs an emulator that is configured to work with the programmed keypresses, and gives the gameboy its sweet video game magic.

How I built it:

First I started out with a large cardboard box – referencing a modified image of a gameboy I was able to mark out where the buttons and screen should all be:

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Then I lined up where all the pushbuttons should be, and wired them up to an arduino due clone:

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To make the buttons, I designed scaled-up versions in FreeCad and 3d printed them at Skullspace – a big thanks to Thor for showing me how to use the printer!

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To make it look legit, I scaled up and modified an image of the gameboy and cut holes for the buttons and screen, and printed it off at Staples.  Kudos to the guys at Staples who helped me sort out the scaling issues!! Seriously, they stayed after closing time to help.  So awesome.

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To get the netbook to sit properly, I had to detach the screen from its hinges and support everything with a combination of hot glue, dowel and zip ties:

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After all the pieces were done, I glued it all together and stretched an oversized shirt over the back half of the box to  make it wearable:

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And of course it wouldn’t be complete without a game very dear to my heart, Pokemon Blue:And that’s how its done!

 

Now I need to get my netbook back out of it…..