Create a planetarium night-light using a Raspberry Pi

Daniel Chote‘s son was learning about stars and astronomy in day-care, but was always in bed before it got dark. So, Daniel decided to use a Raspberry Pi to create a planetarium night-light! It involves a lot of tinkering and software installation to get just right, but he has written it all up in a friendly manner so you can get the result you want. The software, by the way, is Stellarium. Read part 1 of how to do it yourself here.

Building a Raspberry Pi-powered walkie talkie

Daniel Chote (a New Zealander now living in the USA) has built a walkie talkie for his kids out of a Raspberry Pi, some small electronic parts and a 3D case. When you press the button, you can use the internal USB speakerphone to talk to other participants. The software backend is Mumble which means you could use your “talkiepi” to talk to anyone running a Mumble client – even a PC, Mac or other Linux machine. He has extensively documented his build here and has written an install guide here. It’s a great project from someone who cares as much about what the device looks like as how it works!

Raspberry Pi’s Picademy and Code Club Pro come to Glasgow

This Autumn, Raspberry Pi takes Picademy and Code Club Pro North of the border into Glasgow. The events, which take place on 14-15 October, 25-26 October, 1-2 November and 28-29 November at the Mitchell Library, are part of the Foundation’s outreach programme. I’ll let them explain more:

Picademy is our free, two-day CPD event. You will make and hack your own cool projects while learning important skills along the way such as decomposing problems, testing and debugging, and building resilience. All workshops are underpinned by relating the learning to real-world classroom applications. Graduate as a Raspberry Pi Certified Educator and join a supportive community of fellow graduates to help you on your path to success.

Code Club Pro is our free, in-school, 2-hour workshop. Pick from three strands of learning: Computational Thinking, Programming, or the Internet and the Web. Submit a request for us to come to your school and run a free twilight session with you and your fellow educators. We will support you to feel confident and excited about delivering the new computing curriculum!

You can apply for the Glasgow Picademy sessions here and you can request a Code Club Pro session here.

 

Granny checking box helps Raspberry Pi fan keep an eye on his grandmother

Not as creepy as it sounds!

James Zingel from New Zealand noticed his mother’s concern for his grandmother’s well-being. So, with a Raspberry Pi he was given, he set about constructing a monitoring device. The box, called Gran Check, has a PIR sensor set into the front which detects his gran’s movement when she feeds her dogs every morning then takes a picture and sends it to his parents. It’s a lovely project by a very caring grandson! Read more on the Raspberry Pi blog and on the Bay of Plenty Times site.