How to build a gingerbread computer

Introduction
Recipe, Ingredients and Accessories
Graphic card
CPU cooler
RAM memory
Mainboard
Summary



21/12-05 | Henrik Olsson | milohenke@64bits.se

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Introduction

Christmas is just round the corner. For some it is a chance to relax with friends and relatives and retreat from the every day hectic work pace. A common family tradition is Christmas baking and most of us have probably taken part in it at least once, with a more or less successful result. Personally, I’m not a big fan of the whole Christmas baking thing, but since my girlfriend loves it I usually end up doing it anyway.

This year a new idea popped into my head when baking the annual ingerbread house. How about doing something fun and different? Thoughts swirled in my head for a moment and eventually formed a peculiar idea: “Why not build a gingerbread computer? No, get a hold of yourself. This is just too geeky; having computers as a hobby isn't enough but now you'll intrude on the traditional gingerbread house building.” I looked in the mirror for a moment and thought: "Has it really gone that far?" A fraction of a second passed before the answer came: “This is just too fun to miss out this challenge. Screw Christmas traditions and on with the computer “nerdiness”; let's build a gingerbread PC!”

In the following text you will take part of the result, from idea to realization. The Gingerbread PC will be published in two parts. The first part of this article focuses on building the processor, heatsink, memory, graphics card and the mainboard. In the second part we will continue with the case, power supply, CD/DVD-player and the harddrive.

Recipe, Ingredients and Accessories

To make a gingerbread PC you will need a recipe, some ingredients and a few tools. We will therefore go through the list of essentials for baking a gingerbread PC.

Recipe

Ingredients

Among the ingredients there is no fancy stuff. Most of it can be found in a fairly well equipped kitchen. Those of you living at home ought to find the stuff needed in your mom’s baking cupboard. ;)

Accessories

The following tools may come in handy when baking:

A somewhat odd but very handy tool, that might raise an eyebrow or two, is the pizza slicer. It makes cutting a whole lot easier. About the glue, on the contrary to the wood glue on the photo, super glue is preferable. Regular wood glue will of course work, but it takes longer to harden. A third and more edible solution is melted sugar. This is made by melting a few decilitres of sugar in the oven or in a frying pan. Then dip the edges of the pieces you want to glue together in the melted sugar and press the pieces together.


Graphic card

The first component that we are going to bake is the graphics card. It's relatively easy; just take a lump of dough, place it on some baking paper and roll it until it is flat and a few millimetres thick and covering a surface of adequate proportions. After that, you place a previously completed model on the dough and cut out the motive. I used the hard cover of an A4 paper notebook for the model. Be careful, because the dough tends to stick to the model and is easily deformed. To avoid this, you can rub some flower onto the model to avoid that the dough becomes too sticky. A knife is then used when separating the dough from the model. It's initially one of the more difficult tasks and may result in a few unsuccessful attempts.

When this is done, you place it on the baking paper and leave it in the oven until it's brown and crispy. This should only take a minute or two.

The left photo shows the different components of the cooling unit. The heatsinks have already been glued to the bottom plate and the fan is made in advance. The fan consists of a round "Bassett" candy, with the green fins cut into slim pieces from a green candy. The right photo shows the cooling unit after it’s been assembled and glued onto the bottom gingerbread plate.

After we've done our gpu cooler it's time for the card itself. For this you need some more gingerbread dough and some assorted candy in the shape of liquorice rolls for the capacitors and square-shaped candy called bassetts. The gpu itself is made from a fudge. When the graphics card plate and the shim is baked, you simply place it as on the photo to the right.

When all the candy components have been glued into place, the cooler remains to be placed on the card. This is simply done by applying glue to the bottom of the cooler and then apply it onto the card. .. and voila! Our gingerbread graphics card is complete!


CPU cooler

Now it's time to move onto building a gingerbread heatsink for the candy processing unit (CPU). The procedure is the same as before, that is make a model, flatten the dough, put the model in place, cut it out etc. Even the fan is built similarly to the one on the graphics card. The difference is the size of the bits of candy used, and that you need two round basset pieces.

The left image shows all the parts, aside from the fins of the fan, that are used to construct the fan itself. In the right photo we see the completed parts after we have pieced together the fan and retention. The model for the fan retention is made using a disassembled standard 80mm fan.

The cpu heatsink is reasonably simple to make because it only contains seven parts; the base and six fins. The fins are mounted relatively easily by gluing them onto the bottom plate. Once this is done, all that remains is to mount the fan on top of the heatsink. The easiest way of doing this is to just place the fan on top of the heatsink and avoiding gluing it. That way it minimizes any risk of damaging it while moving it. The other option is to wait until you have mounted the heatsink on the mainboard before you glue the fan in place.

RAM memory

Making the memory is perhaps the easiest part of the gingerbread PC construction. All that is needed is two pieces of gingerbread and a liquorice rod with a minty inside. They are called penguin rods over here. Open it up with a slice of a sharp knife and remove the minty stuff inside. Then cut it into 16 small pieces shaped like memory modules and glue them into place.

Mainboard

The mainboard is the part that needs the most parts. The photo to the left shows all the parts required to build a gingerbread mainboard. You will need a lot of dough to construct the mainboard, since it consists of the following parts: mainboard plate, sockets, northbridge with heatsink and basis for the cpu. The capacitors are made by using black licorice rolls and rhubarb candy rods. The assortment of connectors consists of gummy candy and the ic-circuits are made from bassett candy. The memory sockets are constructed by using a rhubarb candy rod cut in half.

The above left photo shows the other components that we've built previously. As you've probably noticed, we didn't settle with just one graphics card, but two. The thought of building a GLI-system (Gingerbread Link Interface) was irresistible. The right photo shows the mainboard in its completed state. The only thing missing is the northbridge heatsink.

Now that the mainboard is finished, it's time to assemble the other parts. We start by fastening the heatsinks and the memory, followed by the fan for the cpu heatsink with its own power cord, a liquorice string. We then finish by putting the two graphics cards in place along with the GLI-bridge.


Summary

The first part of the 64bits gingerbread PC-project is now finished. Constructing it hasn't been as easy as it might seem when reading the article. Building a gingerbread PC requires a bit of experimenting and most of all lots of patience.

The main difficulty with this project is that the gingerbread tends to alter it's shape in the oven, and it tends to be very fragile. This has lead to a few mishaps, though mainly with the larger parts. The issue with the fragility led me to change dough to a regular one that doesn't change shape so quickly in the oven. We will focus more on different tips and tricks for baking in the next part of the article.

In the next part of the gingerbread PC article we will bake a case, power supply, cd/dvd-player and a harddrive. We will also make the common cables found inside a pc. Stay tuned for the next part.


21/12-05 | Henrik Olsson | milohenke@64bits.se

Utskriftsvänligare versionPrint this article