When you review 3D printers, cnc mills, and lasers for your day job, it can be very refreshing to tackle something a little different. This tiny arcade kit from MicroCade has been sitting on my desk for a couple months just begging to be assembled, so I slapped it together really quickly and really enjoyed it.
This article isn’t labelled as a review because I didn’t dig into the programming of this little device. I just assembled it and played with the existing games. Programming is a big part of this kit, so I felt reviewing it based on the assembly was just not right.
The kit arrives with everything you need, in the box. There are the brains, the case, the few parts that need soldered, and the tools to do all this.
You pull up instructions on the provided website, which are clear and guide you through the whole process quite easily. I’d say the whole thing took me maybe 30 minutes. The first step is to actually solder on a few parts to the main brains so the whole thing can work. This is basic through-hole soldering of an LED, A speaker, and the screen. They’re small pins, but pretty easy.
The PCB assembly is quite clever, with little solder pads spread around. The build guide will tell you which parts to put where, and in what order to make sure that it is as painless as possible.
The built in games are cute, nothing to make a huge deal about. This is where I left off. The next steps for this kit would of course be to get in there and start programming your own games. I may revisit this during the holiday break when I don’t have the crunch of some looming deadlines over my head!
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