A Banana Pi radio is a quick and easy thing to set up. It is one of the best first projects that you can create because you get to experience both hardware and software, and you are making a functional device. Now that we have a functional device (well, actually two), you should be inspired to make something even more awesome.

I took one of my Banana Pis and thought an Internet radio was cool. However, it would be even cooler if it was in an antique radio. Here is what it ended up looking like:

I hollowed out the inside of this antique radio. It wasn't working anymore, so don't worry about that part. I also broke apart some spare speakers I had lying around. The original volume knob is glued to the potentiometer of the speaker on the inside, giving it the proper functionality.

Everything else we talked about in this chapter boils down to the same end goal: a project that allows you to be creative. The case that I chose unfortunately didn't make sense adding an LCD. However, I used all the other aspects of this chapter, and it created a very functional device to listen to my podcasts.

You could always leave the Banana Pi out of its case, like this one:

There are all kinds of containers for your Internet radio. You don't need to look for antique radios; however, they do make for a nice project. You could also mount the Banana Pi behind your monitor and connect it to speakers that you control via SSH. Alternatively, you could put the Banana Pi with your stereo system and control it by a web interface. Because of the open nature of the product, you can do almost anything you want.

Some enclosures that you could use for this radio project or even for other situations could be fabricated from a lot of interesting things, such as the following:

If you have access to a 3D printer like I do, you could even 3D-print a case such as the one that I made: