by Jason Kridner
TL;DR – $99 BeagleBone Black GamingCape from CircuitHub
In last year’s TI
intern contest, Max
Thrun amazed us with his incredible
video of the making of the GamingCape
that turned a BeagleBone Black
into a handheld-gaming console running on AAA batteries. If you are like
me, you immediately wanted one of your own. I ran out and bought a few PCBs
from OSHPark, sourced parts
from Digi-Key and started assembling some boards. A few months later, as
you can see, I still don’t have it 100% assembled.
Well, I’m here to ask for your help in fixing this problem! I uploaded
Max’s open hardware design to CircuitHub and they launched a new tool
enabling us to go in together on a board build. This means we can use our
combined purchasing power to lower the cost of buying the components and
justifying the time it takes to setup machines to do the assembly. While
Max’s assembly skills are mesmerizing, they aren’t going to put many boards
in people’s hands.
Thanks to CircuitHub’s new group buy campaign tool, instead of spending
about $1,000 on just a single board assembly, we are each able to buy one
for under $100! If more people buy them, the price might even go down
further, so encourage your friends to buy one too. So, what are you waiting
for? Head on over to the group
buy campaign and turn your BeagleBone into a handheld gaming device too!
http://campaign.circuithub.com/beaglebone-gamingcape
Note that this is a group purchase and not an off-the-shelf product. Max
has done much of the hard work in designing and testing this board, but it
isn’t necessarily perfect. I’ll be working with CircuitHub over the next
few weeks to fix issues that Max has pointed out. Join the Disqus
conversation on the page to help us hammer out the details, visit Max’s
page to review the design materials and join the fun.
Now how about watching that video just one more time…