3D-Printed Flappy Bird Console by 12-Year-Old Maker

Savva Osipov, a self-described “twelve year old maker and a hacker of things,” has grown up hearing stories from his father about life in the Soviet Union. This includes gadgets like the “Nu, pogodi,” translated as “Wait! I’ll catch you!” a handheld game heavily inspired by Nintendo’s EG-26 Egg device. This game, however, his father actually kept, allowing the younger Osipov to play it, inspiring him to make his own Flappy Bird console.

Fortunately, the code to make this run on an Arduino board had already been developed by Themistokle Benetatos, and is freely available on GitHub. After a few modifications to allow it to run on his selected screen, he modeled and printed an enclosure for it in Sketchup, including room for an Arduino Nano, a screen, and a battery and power accessories to allow it to run without being plugged into a computer.

The one-button device proved to be quite popular when he brought it to school, so much so that it was actually stolen. While we hope he somehow gets his device back, he was able to turn this into a chance for improvement, producing a second version with a few improvements, including a speaker. Be sure to check out the video here to see it in action, or his blog post for even more details about construction.