This Mermaid Cyberdeck Mirrors Its Builder’s Feminine Energy

While progress has definitely been made in the right direction, the electronics side of the maker community is still a male-dominated space and that’s a shame. Claudia of Bimbotech is on a mission to bridge the gap and get girls into tech. And she wants to do that without compromising her own style. So when she decided to build a cyberdeck, she went for a mermaid aesthetic that doesn’t hold back.

There isn’t any single “feminine aesthetic” and the idea that there even could be is pretty absurd. That said, Claudia’s whole vibe seems to be about embracing the most stereotypically “girly” trends of the past. For this project, she took particular inspiration from the Polly Pocket toys that were so popular in the ‘90s.

Anchoring that design language is the cyberdeck’s enclosure, which is a pink frame clutch shaped like a clam shell. That certainly stands out compared to the traditional black and blocky cyberdecks we usually see made by dudes.

The clutch houses the electronic components and those are pretty standard fare for a cyberdeck. The most important of those is a Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ single-board computer. That is actually the last A-size model that Raspberry Pi released, as there was never a Raspberry Pi 4 Model A and the Raspberry Pi 5 ditches the distinction altogether. Other components include a 3.5” touchscreen, a ZitaoTech BB Q10 keyboard and touchpad, and a Attom 3000mAh mini power back.

Claudia mounted those components in place on corrugated plastic board covered in satin fabric, which is a nice alternative to 3D printing that suits the aesthetic. Some chain and freshwater pearls dressed the whole thing up a bit.

I don’t think it was intentional, but the final result is very similar to the iconic device used by the character Yara in It Follows. Fans of that film have been talking about that fictional device for more than a decade, so Claudia might be on to something with this project.