The heart of the entire cyberdeck movement is personalization. Instead of shopping within the limits of what manufacturers deem to be marketable, cyberdeck builders can create designs that reflect their own personal tastes. But even so, most cyberdecks fit within a fairly narrow aesthetic—usually some variation of cyberpunk or cassette futurism, fitting the original Gibson source material. Natasha Dzurny (AKA TechnoChic) took things in a completely unique direction by building her Arduino® UNO Q cyberdeck as an Avenue Q-style puppet.

Avenue Q is musical that originally appeared off-Broadway way back in 2003 and has since enjoyed stints on Broadway, the West End, and Las Vegas. It is, essentially, a humorous adult spin on Sesame Street, which means it has all kinds of Hensonian puppets. Dzurny’s interest in Avenue Q and its phonetic similarity to “Arduino Q” led to this creation.

The electronic components are standard fare for a cyberdeck and include the UNO Q (2GB), a mini Bluetooth keyboard/touchpad device, a portable USB battery pack, and a 5” HDMI display. There is also a mini USB webcam hidden away for recorded puppet shows.

The real magic and creativity went into the “enclosure,” which is really the body of the puppet. To craft that, Dzurny started with a spherical mold made of translucent plastic. She then cut that to shape and built a frame structure inside, onto which she could mount the components. Once covered in thick fur, the sphere became a puppet head that Dzurny could put her hand into, so she could open and close the mouth. A couple of big expressive eyes completed the look and a chain strap made the puppet/cyberdeck easy to carry.

Dzurny’s project is the perfect example of why people love cyberdecks: because they’re a perfect outlet for creative expression that reflects the builder’s own personality. 

The post This cyberdeck is a… puppet? appeared first on Arduino Blog.

You’ve got to love the aesthetics of dystopian cyberpunk video games, where all the technology looks like it’s cobbled together from cast-off bits of the old world’s remains. Kudos go to those who attempt to recreate these virtual props and bring them into the real world, but our highest praise goes to those who not only make a game-realistic version of a prop, but make it actually work.

Take the Nokota Manufacturing radio from Cyberpunk 2077, for instance. [Taylor] took one look at that and knew it would be the perfect vessel for a Baofeng UV-5R, the dual-band transceiver that amateur radio operators love to hate. The idea is to strip the PCB out of a Baofeng — no worries, the things cost like $25 — and install it in a game-accurate 3D printed case. But this is far from just a case mod, since [Taylor]’s goal is to replace the radio’s original controls with something closer to what’s in the game.

To that end, [Taylor] is spinning up an interface to the stock radio’s keypad using some 7400-series bilateral analog switches. Hooked to the keypad contacts and controlled by a Mini MEGA 2560 microcontroller, the interface is able to send macros that imitate the keypresses necessary to change frequencies and control the radio’s settings, plus display the results on the yellow OLED screen that seems a dead-ringer for the in-game display. The video below shows some early testing of the interface.

While very much still a work in progress, we’ve been following [Taylor]’s project for a week or so and he’s really gaining some ground. We’ve encouraged him to enter this one in the Cyberdeck Challenge we’ve got going on now; it might not have much “deck” going for it, but it sure does have a lot of “cyber.”