The Foundation is running a two-and-a-half day free CPD session for teachers and anyone who works with youngsters (such as scout leaders etc) on the subject of High Altitude Ballooning. The event, which runs from 24th-26th of August, will enable groups of individuals to come together to learn about HAB, plan their project and then actually launch a payload. More information, including how to apply, can be found on the Foundation blog.
Following the success of last year’s event, the Pi Wars team have announced that there will, indeed, be a Pi Wars 2015! The exact date and venue have yet to be confirmed, but it is expected to be in early December in Cambridge, UK.
The announcement was made at the recent Cambridge Raspberry Jam by myself and Tim Richardson. You can see a video of the announcement here:
More details, including a list of this year’s challenges, are available on the Pi Wars website.
Here are the important dates:
More information, such as general rules, will be made available this week on the Pi Wars website. You might want to sign up for the mailing list to get notifications of updates.
Richard Saville has done a lovely write-up of his experience of building a Raspberry Pi robot from scratch. He’s used wood for the chassis, small motors and tracks. Read more here.
Matt over at Raspberry Pi Spy has written a great tutorial on using the BMP180 to take temperature readings over I2C and then logging them online via thingspeak.com. He’s provided all the code online for you to download and full wiring instructions for the sensor, LED and button. Read more here.
Outernet is an interesting service that broadcasts a large amount of internet-mined content via an orbiting satellite. Anyone can receive it, providing they have the appropriate equipment, on a Raspberry Pi. Here’s some info on the information that is being broadcast from the Raspberry Pi Foundation:
The content is the kind of thing you would find in a public library, with resources on human health, anatomy, encyclopaedias, how-to guides and news feeds. The data is broadcast cyclically so that any new receiver joining the broadcast can catch up with everyone else. The content received from the satellites is cached and served out to the users via http pages, meaning that any device with a browser can be used to read it (both Ethernet and WiFi are supported). It’s worth noting this is only one-way content, because you can’t send messages back up to the satellites.
So it’s kind of a satellite-powered internet for places where you can’t receive the internet. The Foundation have purchased a kit from the Outernet website and set it up on their roof. Read more here.
Many people have these lovely little dongles from Edimax. They’re cheap, tiny and work very well with the Raspberry Pi. Dave Conroy has written up a method to turn your Pi into a wi-fi hotspot using one of these dongles (which uses the RTL8188CUS chipset). This is particularly ideal if you’ve created a robot and want to control it from, say, your mobile phone. Read how to do it here.
