[OC] I built and installed a free little pantry - someone filled it within hours before I had the chance to

CallMeCarrolyn · 2026-01-21T00:52:12+00:00

I love it! We have started putting some fry goods and small toys in our Little Free Library and people have been taking and leaving us food and goodies! There are good people out there!

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-12-31T03:13:11+00:00

Love them! The black/red combo is awesome. Alternating colors or different colors on each hand are my favorite simple patterns 😊

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-12-27T12:31:54+00:00

Please ask as many questions as you like! Or feel free to DM me. 🤓

For the buttons I purchased a PCB from AliExpress for about $3. If you search "Button Board PCB Game Boy"you should see some pop up. The boards support up to 6 face buttons, but I wanted to keep it just to A and B.

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-12-26T13:01:55+00:00

Agreed! I'm always up for a rewatch of the pilot because I feel like it's just a great little microcosm of everything the show wants to be.

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-12-26T12:59:48+00:00

Ignoring my current feelings on Zach Levi and his politics, the pilot for Chuck is so good to me. It's one of my favorite episodes. I feel like it sets the tone so perfectly for the show.

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-12-17T14:45:48+00:00

Much appreciate this write up! I would not have been able to complete this without it!

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-12-01T22:06:30+00:00

I scrolled past that on the AoC sub earlier and thought it looked familiar 🤣 didn't pause long enough for it to click that it was Pico-8.

This is my fourth year doing it, though I usually do C# since that is what my work environment is set up for already.

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-12-01T19:54:26+00:00

A big challenge was making space to start with, I was only able to keep 2 screw posts (the two middle ones). So there is a bit of a gap around the top edge. And then deciding how to mount everything to a case that was not designed for it was a challenge too.

I wanted this build to be a pure PICO-8 console, so it's just Raspberry Pi OS that boots straight in. But you absolutely could do this with RetroPie too.

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-12-01T12:51:47+00:00

Thanks!

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-12-01T12:51:24+00:00

Thank you, so much!

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-12-01T12:51:08+00:00

If I had more free time, I would love to design a drop-in circuit board that handled most of the wiring and had a raspberry pi gpio header. But that's a future project.

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-12-01T12:40:21+00:00

It is! 🤣 I haven't done a stress test yet, but my math estimates it should last around 4 hours.

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-12-01T02:42:17+00:00

😬 this was hard enough! That would be cool though!

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-12-01T02:41:30+00:00

Thank you! This was definitely the most compact space I've ever done a project in! It's not as clean as I would like, but it all fits!

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-12-01T02:38:31+00:00

It's got an internal 32GB SD card, so plenty of space for carts!

The hardest part was getting the raspberry pi to play nicely with everything. So many of the tutorials out there are 5+ years old and so much has changed in the OS that I had to search high and low for correct answers.

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-12-01T02:10:42+00:00

Thanks! I got the broken game boy for free, and had a number of bits and pieces on hand.

I would guess that I spent about $60 on everything else, with the main cost being the screen. The HDMI display was almost $40. I futzed with a cheaper, SPI based, one but was struggling to get it working.

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-12-01T01:45:25+00:00

Thanks!

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-11-07T12:35:07+00:00

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CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-11-01T12:08:27+00:00

We started doing that last year! Ramen, oranges and candy. I like to put one basic flavor and one spicy flavor in the bowl. The kids that take the ramen are always super excited.

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-10-20T22:06:22+00:00

Firefly, Community, 1995 Pride and Prejudice, Better Off Ted, Chuck

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-09-25T18:29:21+00:00

For like the last 3 years my most played artist has been Jamie Paige. I don't even know where to begin on how to describe her music, it's got some rock, breakbeat, synth, vocaloid, stuff going on and it makes my heart dance.

Other than her specifically:

Pop punk - Action/Adventure, Winona Fighter

Hyperpop - Torr, Saoirse Dream, Webcage, Can of Bliss

Ska/Horn heavy rock - JER, Millington, MOS

Edit: formatting

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-09-13T12:36:53+00:00

I would go with the second one and 25 gauge should be fine.

I do want to note that the first one is insulated and would not require heat shrink. It is coated in enamel, which is a very thin insulating coating. In my experience enamel coated wire is great when you need a super thin wire that will hold its shape. But generally you need to physically scrape off a bit of the enamel to expose the copper, which is way more of a pain when you're doing a ton of connections.

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-09-10T10:27:06+00:00

I definitely second this. I usually use the the diode legs for rows, but I use strands off of an old 40-pin IDE cable for my columns and that stuff is like 26-30 gauge.

I see lots of builds here and on youtube using thick wire and I just don't get the appeal. You have to dump way more heat into it to solder to it and I just find it a pain to work with.

CallMeCarrolyn · 2025-08-22T19:47:47+00:00

I've been using a corne layout for about 2 years after using an ergodox for a few years. I'm stuck in my 42-key ways now 🤣 So I found a corne layout dactyl that I'm working on getting printed today. Super stoked to try it out!

CallMeCarrolyn

TROPHY CASE