Play Classic Games on the Mini OLED Retro Handheld

The “Mini OLED Retro Handheld” by electrical engineering student Alex Zidros may not play the latest games — or anything in color for that matter — but does give you a gaming system with a proud grip structure reminiscent of the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con. He has no idea why he made this, but does "love video games and building things.” This seems like as good a reason as any.

The little device is based on an Adafruit Feather 328P, which features the same ATmega328P MCU as the Arduino Uno/Nano, but adds in a handy LiPo connector, as well as a tiny prototyping perfboard area. This makes it perfect as a handheld, as a LiPo and OLED display can be arranged on top of it without much more components-wise. The battery simply plugs in and a couple buttons are added to the "perf-area," while the Feather’s Micro USB port is exposed on the left side for programming and charging.

The build is in fact heavily inspired by the Switch — though much cheaper — and the 3D-printed structure is even derived from this design. With the body and grips printed out, it’s pretty much just a matter of hooking up GND, VCC, SCL, and SDA to the 128x64 pixel OLED, along with the perfboard buttons and another pair on the shoulders.