A 15 year old schoolboy won the Institute of Physics prize at the recent Big Bang Fair by using a Raspberry Pi to analyse sensor readings and prove part of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Pratap Singh, from The Perse School in Cambridge, used two Geiger-Muller tubes to detect cosmic ray muons which prove the existence of time dilation. He then created a mathematical model and statistical reports on the Pi to analyse the data. You can read more at the IOP site here.
Cabe Atwell has posted about his latest project on the Element 14 website. It’s a hard, plastic, spherical ball inside which is mounted a Raspberry Pi, a couple of batteries, a Neopixel strip and an accelerometer. By rolling the ball, the accelerometer takes readings and when the ball is in a certain orientation the Neopixels light up and generally make things pretty. You can read how he did it here and see a video of the project, including a really inadvisable test of rolling it down a set of stairs, below.
Tyler Spadgenske has written an Instructable that shows you how to create your own mobile phone using a Raspberry Pi A+. He 3D-prints a case for the phone and then fills that case with components including an Adafruit FONA board (which connects to the mobile network once you insert a SIM card). It’s a great project that was probably based on Dave Hunt’s PiPhone work. Read Tyler’s Instructable here. It contains all the information you need, including a link to his ‘operating system’ which is the GUI script.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation is looking for a new member of staff with experience in education: Head of Curriculum Development. Here’s what they say about the post:
The Raspberry Pi Head of Curriculum Development is a full-time position, reporting to the Head of Education at the Raspberry Pi Foundation. In this role the successful candidate will be responsible for creating a curriculum to direct the development of all education materials generated by the Raspberry Pi Foundation for both formal and informal learning.
For more details, including how to apply, go to their website.
Fashion brand Rapanui, who power their factory by wind turbines, have set-up a Twitter account which you can tweet in order to get a t-shirt made. You simply tweet a picture to @tshirtplease and a Raspberry Pi, which has monitored the Twitter account, sends commands to their system to generate a custom t-shirt based on that image. You can read more on the Foundation’s blog.
After the onslaught that was the Raspberry Pi Big Birthday Weekend, myself and Tim Richardson are holding a much more relaxed, much smaller, Jam in our home town of Potton, Bedfordshire on Saturday, 11th April from 2-6pm. You can book free tickets here. Here’s some more information:
We start around lunchtime and encourage people to bring along their projects to show and discuss or to come along and find out more about the Raspberry Pi and what it can do. We set-up some Pi workstations for general hacking, but you’re welcome to bring your own equipment along. This event is an ideal opportunity to get some one-on-one help with setting your Pi up or to get assistance with an ongoing project.
The event is being held in Potton (see Potton on Google Maps), a small town on the Bedfordshire/Cambridgeshire border, at The Rising Sun, a family-friendly, dog-friendly pub. The Rising Sun is a CAMRA-accredited local pub that regularly has 7 real ales, real cider and all the usual beverages. Food is available all day and is of the pub-grub variety: generously-portioned and reasonably priced. You can read more about The Rising Sun on their website.
We’ve arranged to use the upstairs function room (part of which is pictured below) which has tables and chairs and plenty of space for your projects or just for talking if that’s all you want to do.
This event will be a real social for Pi enthusiasts and we’re hoping it will be nice and relaxed. Kick back, unwind and do stuff with your Pi.
We’ll be supplying a few Raspberry Pis, monitors, keyboards, mice, cables and power sockets so all you have to do is come along. But please feel free to bring your own Pi, your SD card and whatever other electronic wizardry/gadgetry you happen to have.
We’ll have some of our worksheets available, including Minecraft Pi Edition, so there’ll be some activities for kids available.
At the end of the Jam (5-6pm-ish), we’ll be packing up and re-arranging the room so that those who want to can order food and eat/drink/talk to our hearts’ content.
Any questions can, as usual, be addressed to Tim Richardson (tim@potton.me.uk) and Michael Horne (mike@recantha.co.uk).
