Alex Eames has announced a stretch goal for the Raspberry Pi GPIO ruler he launched on Kickstarter last week.

What is the stretch goal?

The target for the goal is 1000 backers or £6000 and, if either of these are hit, Alex will donate 100 rulers to the Raspberry Pi Foundation. It’s as simple as that.

He has ruled out doing things like adding LEDs to the board (which I totally understand!) and making it longer (because it would wreck the budget the project is based on).

What is this ruler thing?

The ruler, which is just over 15cm long, is primarily a reference guide for the Pi’s GPIO pins and how to program them in Python. It is double-sided and now (after a recent revision) shows BCM pin numbers on one side and alternate functions on the other.

Alex is determined to make the ruler the best product he can, within the limitations of the current size, and has been taking suggestions from the community about things they would like to see on the product.

I got hold of a prototype version last week and did a mini-review, which you can read here.

Where can I get one?

You can ‘pledge’ to get one on the Kickstarter campaign page. There are 25 days left to go on the campaign as of today, 20th July. The price for the ruler is £4 (plus a nominal postage charge) although if you buy multiples you can get it slightly cheaper. So, if you ever need to do any GPIO programming, grab one of these great little rulers while you can! If you want to find out more, take a look at Alex’s Kickstarter campaign video below: