Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Orange Pi, and other SBCs or microcontrollers offer those who are creatively-minded unique opportunities to come up with projects that are useful, crazy, quirky, or some combination of all of the above. Some, though, elevate what you might think the technology can accomplish. Here are five SBC and microcontroller projects that really go hard and stretch our perspective of what these tiny boards can do.

1 A home automation terminal from the Fallout franchise

This fully functional smart home terminal looks like Vault-Tec made it

Rick, the maker behind this Fallout-inspired home automation terminal, has combined 3D printing skills, painting and weathering techniques, and the Raspberry Pi. There’s also some fantastic ingenuity here since it uses a modern HDMI touch display and a Fresnel lens to make it look like an old CRT.

The Raspberry Pi 400 inside runs a command line interface with the OpenAI API. Rick can type commands to call home automation tasks in his house, like controlling lighting or queueing up the music for dinner or a house party. This is an incredible way to add anachronistic and dystopian flair to a home automation setup.

2 DIY interactive LED coffee table

LEDs and proximity sensors add customization and reactivity

Want a coffee table that’s also an enchanting light show? How about one that’s interactive? This interactive LED coffee table project requires a lot of time and woodworking ability, but the payoff looks cool. It uses an Arduino board, LED lights, proximity sensors, and a custom app to turn a humdrum coffee table into a real conversation piece.

The design features square panels along the table’s surface that light up independently. You can control it with a smartphone app, adjusting color and brightness and creating light shows. On top of that, each light panel has its own proximity sensor—set an object on a panel, and it can automatically change color for a splash of interactivity.

3 The Raspberry Pi-powered smart mirror you can build yourself

Two-way mirrors are suitable for more than just interrogation rooms

The two-way mirrors used in police lineups on the big and small screen have another use: turning your boring dressing mirror into a smart display. Featured several times on Raspberry Pi’s official websites, projects like this add functionality to help your morning routine be more efficient and, well, incredible.

It uses a Raspberry Pi connected to a display placed behind two-way mirror glass and the open-source Magic Mirror 2 software. Magic Mirror’s modular nature allows you to place widgets on your mirror to display the current weather, any upcoming appointments on your calendar, or even just words of affirmation to give you a feel-good start to the day.

4 An over-engineered kid’s car

This electric kid’s car uses Raspberry Pi for a custom dashboard complete with touch screen

Almost universally, children love those electric cars and SUVs they can drive down the sidewalk or around the driveway. However, these expensive toys haven’t evolved much over the years and don’t have many of the bells and whistles you find in actual automobiles.

That doesn’t mean you can’t add the technology, though. This father did precisely that in a Raspberry Pi project that really goes harder than most. The DIY enthusiast added a dashboard to his daughter’s electric car that controls the vehicle itself and incorporates a music player with a touch screen, a GPS complete with a moving map, a selfie camera, and a push-button panel.

5 Turning a Raspberry Pi 5 into a touchscreen laptop

Easily sourced components make turning your SBC into a laptop with touchscreen easy

We’ve been able to add touchscreen displays to our Raspberry Pi projects for years, but their use has almost always been for a more tablet-style form factor. Yes, some options allow you to plug your Pi into an external display/keyboard/touchpad combo, but many of us want a more seamless laptop experience. 3D-print enthusiast Helmar has designed the answer to that desire.

Thanks to the ready availability of custom PCBs, touchscreen display panels, and other electronic components, Helmar designed a DIY Raspberry Pi 5 laptop case. He includes full assembly instructions and suggestions for where to source the components. You can even customize the case with freely downloadable 3D design files you can modify before 3D printing the bezel and other case components.

Thriving SBC and other Maker communities offer astounding inspiration

These five projects are really just the tip of the iceberg. DIY enthusiasts specializing in hobbyist electrical engineering, 3D design and printing, and prop-making offer plenty of ideas for your own projects. The inspiration these projects could help you come up with your own astounding creation using a Raspberry Pi, Arduino, or other SBC or microcontroller.