We’ve seen plenty of maker projects recreating older consoles and their controllers out of LEGO using Arduinos and Raspberry Pis as the core, but we can’t recall ever seeing a LEGO NES controller quite as big as this one.

This huge controller easily outsizes a MacBook and was made with $130 (~R1 714) worth of LEGO. The D-pad is connected to a ball joint with the other buttons floating freely in the top part of the controller.

These buttons press down into the bottom area to activate switches hooked up to an Arduino-compatible board. This is then connected to a PC running an NES emulator, where the button presses are interpreted as keyboard input.

This project also acts as a kind of showcase for the Kickstarter campaign of Crazy Circuits – an electronics system made to work with LEGO. The individual elements of the system such as buttons, microcontrollers and lights all connect to regular LEGO studs, and are then connected with a conductive nylon tape.

Luckily Brown Dog Gadgets, the company who created this project and Crazy Circuits, is not locking you out if you decide not to use their products. You can find a full guide on how to replicate this controller on Instructables, and they mention ways to adapt it if you’re using regular electronics.

It’s still going to be an expensive project, so there’s also a smaller version using laser cut wood that you could follow instead to save a few bucks.

