For Christmas, I wanted to create a portable gaming emulator for my kids. Now, there are a ton of tutorials out there, I even bought all of the parts to build out the PiGRRL Zero. I borrowed a 3D printer and printed out some samples… wow did they suck.

There are some nice 3D printers on the market, but there’s simply nothing within my price range that is going to be able to create something as nice as the original GameBoy Advance case – which, side note, is in my personal opinion, the best handheld form factor ever created. Seeing as how I can purchase one for about $10 with the proper buttons, it was time to rethink what I was building.

Now the goal is to figure out how to get all of this to fit properly within a GameBoy Advance case… I searched the interwebs for anything and game up with the realization that I’m going to have to create my own PCB, like this awesome example.

Why not simply use that one? Excellent question! The biggest reason is that for my GameBoy Advance clone, it absolutely must have the old-school cartridge feel. I think modern day gaming (and life in general) is really missing out on a lot of the tangible feel.

So, instead, I’ll use this as a good teaching experience for my oldest daughter and myself. I haven’t built a circuit board since high-school, and that was some pretty basic stuff.

I’ll be posting our journey here for those that may find this interesting. However, since I’m not an EE (electrical engineering) major, have no training in the field, and pretty much know nothing about what I’m doing, don’t expect too much epicness. 🙂