The full article can be found in The MagPi 36
When you’re a magician looking to make your tricks - sorry, illusions – better, you have several paths to go down. You could start buying or recreating other people’s work; however, that’s not entirely original, and you risk other people having seen it already. What truly great magicians do is to create their own illusions – original tricks that wow an audience with a wonderful show. Creating tricks and illusions for people-sized magic sounds similar to another hobby: that of being a maker. Makers love the Raspberry Pi, and this is where professional magician Daniel Spies found himself at the end of 2014.
“I wanted to start learning how to program in Python so I could integrate a Raspberry Pi in complex magic acts,” Daniel tells us. “The Raspberry Pi would be great for starting special music or sound effects, operating small smoke machines or even electromagnets. After I mastered the basics (servos, LEDs, etc.) it was time to build something as a practice project. It had to include as many different skills as possible, like CAD drawing, 3D printing, mechanical engineering, programming, and electronics. Then I saw guys on YouTube using their Raspberry Pi to emulate classic games on their TV. The idea was born.”
Daniel decided to 3D-print his own custom NES case for the Raspberry Pi; it was smaller, sleeker and with a few more tricks than the 30-year-old console, including motors, lots of flashing lights, and the ability to play N64 games. There were some rules for the project to make it worthwhile as a test run for bigger things, though.
“[These] rules included the Nin10do must look like a firm professional game console; it must run my Python script in the background but not sacrifice any speed or usability; it must have a option to be turned on and off without damaging the software or the SD card, and the cover must not damage itself if, for some reason, it is opened twice by the stepper motor.”
With this in mind, Daniel went to work. He created full schematics for the electronics, making use of a series of LEDs, stepper motors, driver boards, timing belts, and lots of extenders to reach the I/O ports to make it actually usable. All of the components used were basic ones, so while there was a lot of soldering involved, he wasn’t gutting any existing devices to make the project work.
With this and the coding in place (which you can find on his GitHub page), Daniel designed and 3D-printed a case reminiscent of the NES that could house his Raspberry Pi and electronics. The important question, though, was whether or not he succeeded...
“The latest version runs very stable!” Daniel reveals. “I added some parts a while ago (small capacitor in the second momentary switch) and changed the USB hub to a better version. This solved the last (minor) bugs.”
The full build process, printable 3D models and code are all available online from Daniel, so if you want to give it a go yourself, the tools are there. There may even be a kit coming in the future...
