For those groups who are lucky enough to get hold of an Astro Pi board, it can be a little bewildering when it comes to getting started. Fortunately, Martin O’Hanlon has done a quick start guide that will help you download some sample software and understand the capabilities of the board. Read on here.
Pi Community member Arthur Amarra of aonsquared.co.uk has recently launched a new Kickstarter for a small add-on board for the Raspberry Pi which uses a Nokia 5110 screen to display data. He’s created various different pledge levels including one with a BMP180 barometer/temperature sensor attached, and another with an included GPS board. You can currently get the complete kit for £9 (plus reasonable postage – £3 for UK) on the Very Earlybird. This rises to £10 for Earlybird and £11 for regular. Other options cost more, but you very much get what you pay for.
I think it’s a great Kickstarter – a product that is cheap & easy to use. Arthur has already written code to help you interface with the screen (which you can view on Github). Delivery for the kits is Jul-Aug this year, which is reasonable.
Read more and/or back this project on Kickstarter here. The campaign video is below.
The folks at the Coventry Makerspace are organising a regular Raspberry Jam to take place every third Saturday at their base in the Koco Community Resource Centre. Special events for the first Jam, taking place on Saturday 16th May, are:
International company PTC has unveiled a new concept known as a “Digital Twin”. They took a CAD-designed mountain bike and mounted a bunch of sensors on-board. These sensors feed into a Raspberry Pi which interprets the data and creates a virtual ‘twin’ of the mountain bike. It is hoped that this concept can be used with any computer-designed item to test out prototypes and see how different factors affect performance. Read more over at The IET.
James Singleton took a Raspberry Pi and a BlinkyTape and created a train disruption indicator. He used the London Underground API and an interface he wrote to look at Main Line delays to program the BlinkyTape to show different colours and to flash whenever there was a disruption on one of the lines. There’s lots more detail on his blog, so head over there to read more.
FatCookies decided that he wanted to be able to turn his kettle on from his phone. So, he took an old power supply enclosure, ripped out the insides and replaced it with a Raspberry Pi and a relay board, some wiring and, of course, hot glue to keep it all in place. He then hooked it up to the kettle, provided power for both and created a Python script to activate it. He hasn’t yet finished the software to give him a web interface, and the kettle has to (obviously) be filled and the switch turned on, but it’s a nice proof-of-concept. Read more here.
