The RPi circuit board isn't a very demanding shape to encase; it's a 56mm x 85mm rectangle (just a smidge bigger than a standard credit card) with a depth of just under 20mm. However there are ports on every side of this rectangle so you don't have any 'clean' edges. There have been some not-so-serious homemade cases including; the tobacco tin case, Marlboro packet case and toilet roll tube Raspberry Pi case. Someone also found the Perspex iPod Touch packaging was almost perfect for the job of housing the RPi.
In summer you should be able to buy, with the new production batch, the Raspberry Pi complete with a standard official case, if you wish: "We’ll be making and selling cases by the summer; you’ll be able to buy a unit with or without a case, or a case on its own. The education release later in 2012 will have a case by default." So it says on the organisation website.
There are a couple of cases available to buy now; the best-looking version we found is the Raspberry Topping case from ModMyPi, it has the choice of five colours, also you can mix and match different upper- and lower-part colours. The company will only take your order now; the delivery will be in May 2012 sometime. Be aware though, that possibly the new production-release RPi will be of a slightly different size or circuit board configuration to the beta RPi people already own.
A wooden case made by an Etsy user is definitely disappointing when you consider the possible beauty of wooden pieces. Think of all the decorative carving, inlays, ornamental veneering and French-polishing techniques that could have been used... More aesthetically pleasing and decorative might be the DIY Lego casing a few RPi fans have made to house their computers. An example is pictured below.
If you own, or have access to, a 3D printer then it's a snip to print out your own-designed RPi case as an enthusiast in Italy did. You could print one with the Makerbot Replicator we featured in January!
Our favourite case in copious web travels is what you might call an RPi laptop case; it's actually made of wood and quite early in development. The completed machine will feature a 4.3in LCD display and a PIC-based QWERTY keyboard. Please marvel at the picture below, it's an early prototype model!
It would be great to play on Fuse, the newly-released Spectrum emulator on the above RPi laptop. Relive those heady days of Commodore 64 envy, until a C-64 emulator is ported over.
