I TURNED A TOY LAPTOP INTO A GAMING LAPTOP!

using the plastic mounting post molded into the toy laptop. Then I reinforce everything with super. Honestly, it's way I thought it. Next comes something every laptop needs, a webcam. Luckily, the Android mini PC already has one built in. So I removed the camera module, drilled a small hole in the toy laptop in the perfect position. This toy laptop officially has a working webcam. Now comes the most time consuming entire build. Getting rid of all these plastic inside the case. After nearly 30 minutes of cutting, trimming and cleaning, I had enough space for the rest of the hardware. For power, I chose 3.7 volt lithium batteries. The first step is securing all four battery cells firmly in place. Then I wired them in parallel, increasing the overall battery capacity while keeping the voltage the same. Of course, that creates another problem. The system needs 5 volts, not 3.7 volts. So I'll add a DC boost converter to step the voltage up. Now let's see if it actually works. Perfect. After running through the boost converter, the output is now just over 5 volts. Exactly what I was hoping for. The next step is identifying the positive and negative power terminals on the motherboard. Once I know which is which, I can safely feed power from the battery pack, risking any damage. After confirming the polarity, I soldered two wires directly to the power input. I'll connect these to the battery pack a little later. Next up is the power button. The original switch is in a spot that's almost impossible to reach once everything is assembled. So instead, I traced the two contacts that are active when the button is pressed. I soldered a separate momentary push button to those contacts, giving me a much more convenient external power switch. The last thing I wanted to relocate was the USB port. I didn't want all my USB sticking out of the top edge of the laptop, so I salvaged a USB port from an old circuit board instead. After removing its four wires, I soldered its four wires to the corresponding USB pads on the motherboard in the correct order. This lets me position the USB wherever it's most convenient instead of being limited by the original layout. Next, I needed to separate the Ethernet port and wire it to the motherboard. Once that was done, I mounted the Ethernet and USB ports on the toy laptop. But before any of that, I had to take some careful measurements and trim a few sections of the plastic so everything would fit together perfectly. With that finished, I connected the power wires to the battery pack. At this point, the project was finally starting to come together. The next step was adding a charging circuit. I decided to reuse the same board with the built-in LED battery level indicator that I used in my previous project. It's compact, practical, and fits this project perfectly. So I mounted it right next to the USB and Ethernet ports. Time to install the power button. I wanted it to stay in the laptop's original location, so I mounted a small tactile switch underneath and attached the original power button cap on top. And honestly, I'm surprised by how satisfying the click is. It's actually really satisfying. Now for one of the most important parts of any laptop, the keyboard. Unfortunately, the original keyboard on this toy wasn't a real keyboard at all. It was just a single piece of molded plastic made to look like one. So I picked up this ultra-compact Bluetooth keyboard instead. It's small enough to fit the overall design, although it's a bit shorter than the opening left by the original fake keyboard. To make it fit properly, I fabricated a custom PVC mounting and cut out an opening that matched the dimensions of the new keyboard. I chose this particular model because it's incredibly convenient. It connects over Bluetooth, has a rechargeable battery, and charges through USB Type C. But since this laptop already has its own battery pack, I removed the keyboard's internal battery and wired it directly to the main power system. That way, I never have to worry about charging it separately. Once everything was wired up, I secured the keyboard to the PVC plate, then cut an opening in the laptop shell to drop the entire assembly into place. At this point, everything was finally ready. All that was left to do was put every piece back together into a complete laptop. And it's done. From the outside, it looks surprisingly adorable. What's even cooler is that it actually has all the essential features you'd expect from a real laptop. Alright, the moment of truth. Let's see if it actually powers on. 3, 2, 1. It works! I was seriously so happy I could have cried. I honestly never I'd end up building something this weird and somehow make it actually work.