Arran Gunn's CyberBrick Is a Compact Yet Chunky Portable Field Terminal in a Custom-Built Metal Case

Maker Arran Gunn has designed a compact "field terminal" cyberdeck that pairs an M5Stack Cardputer-Adv with a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W single-board computer and boasts a robust custom stainless steel case: the CyberBrick.

"I made myself a pocket terminal and called it CyberBrick," Gunn explains. "It's running [Raspberry] Pi OS Lite and I have a suite of tools installed. The interface I use is a[n M5Stack] Cardputer flashed with launcher firmware and from there I flash Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, both the Cardputer and CyberBrick auto connect to my [Wi-Fi] hotspot, so its essentially a wireless online field terminal that weighs a little over 200 grams [around 7.1oz] including the Cardputer."

The M5Stack Cardputer is immediately recognizable in the build, thanks to its eye-catching compact keyboard and the presence of a small microcontroller module to the upper-right — but the M5Stack's own compact display has been augmented with a larger panel, behind a sheet of green acrylic for a retro-style glow, housed in a stainless-steel chassis. "I'm a metalworker by trade," Gunn explains, "so I make these stainless steel cases and enclosures, and I've done extensive RF [Radio-Frequency] testing with different vents holes patterns and pitches to make the steel not interfere with transmitting and receiving."

That's important, because the real meat of the build is inside the metal case: a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W single-board computer, linked to a PiSugar 3 uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for on-the-go power and a Pimoroni Inventor HAT Mini for easy hardware expansion. "The main reason I made the CyberBrick is to learn Bash, Python and to navigate and communicate with a computer terminal where ever I am," Gunn explains, "and I've learned a lot."

There's an interesting twist to the design, too: while the metal portion of the case can be sat atop the Cardputer for desktop use, it's also fully detachable — allowing it to be mounted anywhere while holding the Cardputer side of the build in-hand.

More information is available in Gunn's Reddit post; the maker has promised to publish STEP and STL files for the case on GitHub alongside a bill of materials, but at the time of writing the repository had not yet been made public.