Raspberry Pi is a household name in the enthusiast DIY space, and there's a good chance you've come across or even thought about picking up this single-board computer that fits inside the palm of your hand. There's been a lot of Raspberry Pi iterations over the last decade, and we've also seen plenty of weird, fascinating, and awesome projects through the years. Let's look at some of those projects that'll make you want to drop everything and put on your DIY hat right now.
5 An AI chatbot running on a Raspberry Pi
ChatGPT running locally on an SBC?
AI chatbots are all the rage right now, so it seems appropriate to add a Pi project involving artifical intelligence. This particular project uses a Raspberry Pi to create an offline AI chatbot that runs locally. The details of the project on its maker's GitHub page reveals that it only needs an internet connection for setup, and that this LLM can completely run locally. That's great for the privacy-minded indivuals like me who hate having to send off your data to the cloud.
This best thing about this project is that you can set it up yourself with a bit of tinkering. Once you set eveything up and get it up and running, you should be able to use it for all your queries. It looks like it'll take around 15 seconds (or sometimes longer) to process and respond. That's not bad for a simple DIY project, isn't it?
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4 A DIY Steam Deck
Maybe not, but our guide will get you close
Installing Steam on Raspberry Pi is fairly simple, and we even have a handy guide to help you get started and set things up. In fact, a YouTube creator used our very own guide to get Steam running on their Raspberry Pi 5 and create a DIY gaming console. The 23-minute video uploaded to their channel is a proof that it actually works and is very much usable too. Not too shabby for a fun afternoon Raspberry Pi project, eh?
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It is, of course, not quite the Steam Deck you are expecting it to be, as the performance of the machine is still limited due to Raspberry Pi 5's internals. It is, however, powerful enough to run 2D hits like Brotato, and even some 3D classics like the original Portal. That is definitely a win in my books, and is absolutely worth trying if you're itching to start a new DIY project.
3 Gem Boy Zero
Among the best DIY retro game machines out there
There's no shortage of retro game machines out there that's got a Rasperry Pi module in its heart, but this one in particular stands out as one of the best ones I've seen. This particular project, unlike the others highlighted on this post, looks and feels like a more finished product, thanks to the 3D printed Game Boy shell that houses the Raspberry Pi module and other internals.
Putting this retro game machine will take more time than your afternoon nap as it involves quite a bit of work, but the end result will truly make it worth the effort. There's a dedicated blog post (along with a video) highlighting the instructions and materials requried for the build, and I can't recommend checking out this project enough.
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2 World's smallest Raspberry Pi PC
Nothing is impossible
A Raspberry Pi-powered handheld game machine is cool and all, but have you ever a full-blown PC that's powered by an SBC? Well, you should've seen this coming the moment someone managed to install a GPU onto their Raspberry Pi 5. So the dual-PC setup that you see above was put together by Rizwan Pathan, who has worked on a wealth of other projects.
This particular project sees a Raspberry Pi 4 being turned into a mini PC, complete with not just one, but two touchscreen monitors, speakers, and more. I like how the monitors have their own custom stands, too. They really add to the overall aesthetic, don't they? You may not be able to run your favorite games on this machine, but it should be enough to open YouTube or your streaming service of choice to play some music.
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1 An LED watch powered by a Raspberry Pi
Ditch hands for LEDs
This is hands-down one of the coolest — if not the coolest — Raspberry Pi projects I've seen in a while. No, seriously, who would've thought using LEDs as watch hands would give us a timepiece that looks so cool? I am glad this project got discovered on Reddit where the user littlespleen (Kim Paulsson) shared images of the watch along with a link to a YouTube video showing it in action.
As for the technical details, the circular PCB for the watch puts the RP2040, which is one of the very first Raspberry Pi processors, into use. Its highlight, however, is the fact that it uses LEDs instead of watch hands, which is unlike anything I've seen so far. In fact, I find it cooler and funkier than the smartwatches I've got in my inventory. It's just a fun little project that's yet to reach its final stages of completion, but it's fully functional and can be powered by a battery.
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Lots of cool projects await
Very few pieces of hardware have had the versatility and longevity of Raspberry Pi, and it's truly a remarkable product for electronic projects. The ones mentioned above are only a few of what's possible with a Raspberry Pi. I am pretty sure there are a ton of other projects that I am missing on this list, and that goes to show how strong the community of DIY enthusiast really is, who are constantly churning new and exciting projects that tough to keep a track of.