Father and son build tiny computer in Altoids tin
Original title: Altoids Project
They iterated five times on a Space Trash game project using Arduino Nano and an Altoids tin, with the son handling most 3D printing and soldering.
A father and his 12-year-old son obtained a robot kit at MIT Swapfest and used a ThinkPad laptop to disassemble it. They added an Arduino Nano, display, LiPo batteries, and PowerBoost, then created multiple versions inside an Altoids tin after being inspired by a YouTube video. The son did the CAD work and 3D printing while the pair dealt with display pinout issues, desoldering problems, and wiring failures across five iterations. None of the original components survived, but they finished with two actual Altoids inside the final tin.
- Started with robot kit from MIT Swapfest
- Used Arduino Nano with solderable breadboards
- Son performed CAD and 3D printing
- Five iterations with first components not reused
- AI hallucinated display pinout initially
- Organizations
- MIT
From the original article
3 min read at uvdn7.github.ioMy 12-year-old son and I spent about two months on, what we call, the Altoids project. Here is the final product ( video ): It all started when I took him to MIT Swapfest for the first time. We saw an assembled robot from a couple’s booth; later we learned that it was from a kit .
By uvdn7 · uvdn7.github.io
A short excerpt; the article and its images belong to the publisher. Summary, key facts and assessment above are AI-written from the article and can be wrong.