I’ve always wanted a digital wall calendar. Something that could hang in the kitchen and keep track of family obligations, reminders, and to-dos. Wear red on Friday. Sign up for soccer. Early dismissal. Snack day at preschool. Work travel. You get the picture. In theory, I could purchase a tablet, mount it to a wall, and display the family calendar there. But I wanted (actually, needed) something totally custom. And I was in the mood for a good hard challenge. So, in keeping with my year of making and DIY, I decided to build my own. How it works The basic idea is this: I purchase a $35 Raspberry Pi, which is a computer the size of a credit card. I download free software from the RaspberryPi.org website onto my laptop, install it onto a memory card, and then transfer the card onto the Pi. I plug a mouse, keyboard and power supply into the green device and then hook it up to a monitor. Once it turns on, I follow the install instructions that I find online and on YouTube (like this tutorial). Meanwhile, I create a free account on DAKboard.com (a software that’s a “customizable display for photos, calendar, news, weather and more!”) and start configuring my display. I enter my DAKboard account’s personal URL into the Raspberry Pi general settings, along with some other code, which basically tells the computer to display by DAKboard on the fulls screen mode at all times without needing a mouse. Once again, I find all of these commands from online tutorials. After that, voila, my display appears on the big screen! Hardware A Raspberry Pi 3B ($35… It took me an hour just to figure out what kind of Raspberry Pi I needed – there are a bunch of models) A 24-inch monitor ($119 on sale at Best Buy) A keyboard and mouse (existing) An HDMI cable to hook the Pi up to the monitor (existing) A power cord to hook up the Pi to an outlet ($7) Micro SD memory card ($24) Software A DAKboard account: I start with a free version but upgrade to an $8/month version to allow for more customization Google calendar (free): I create a new calendar called “DAKboard” and assign all events to this calendar Todoist (free): I tag all of my family to-dos as “DAKboard” iPhoto to display family pictures. The frustrating process of learning new things I know next to nothing about coding, computers, and cables, so it takes a long time to work through the setup process, and very little time to feel completely incompetent. Even purchasing the hardware requires more than an hour of reading reviews on Amazon and studying blog posts followed by three Amazon orders, two trips to Office Depot, and one to Best Buy. YouTube quickly becomes my best friend because I manage to screw up every part of the process. I have to watch videos on the right way to insert a micro SD card or how to install the operating system. I …