Russell Barnes has conducted an interview with engineer Leo White about his projects involving kids’ toy BigTrak. You can listen to the podcast here.
Switching control with the Raspberry Pi and a Darlington Array
Here’s a good video of how to use a Darlington Array with the Pi to do switching.
Mini speaker from The Pi Hut – review
The Pi Hut have just launched their mini speaker, which has been modded from a standard model especially for the Pi.
It comes in a really nice box (below).
It comes with a 3.5mm audio cable to plug in to the port on the Pi and also a USB charging cable.
The speaker itself is about 2-3 inches across and is an attractive deep red colour. It’s got a soft matt finish, which is great because that means it’s fingerprint-resistant. You can also use it as an MP3 player as it’s got a microSD slot in the side. I didn’t try it in this mode, but it’s a nice addition. It’s also got volume control buttons on the side.
So, how does it perform? Well, I tried it out on a Model B+ with the slightly improved audio performance of that model and, I have to say, it performs brilliantly. The decibels it pumps out when turned up to maximum are truly impressive. I tried it with Big Buck Bunny using omxplayer…
and I tried it using Sonic Pi, which the box proclaims as being ‘ideal for’, and it really is.
Here’s Sonic Pi v2 playing at full volume. Slight bit of distortion at the high end, but still acceptable:
I should say at this point that none of those clips really does the sound justice, it’s just the best I can do on my phone!
So, are there any downsides? Only one that I could find. If you plug the 3.5mm cable into the Pi and the USB charging cable into the Pi at the same time, you will get interference in the form of static playing over the speaker. I’m no technical expert so I’m not sure why that is. The static isn’t so bad you can’t hear anything, but it is a slight problem that I felt I ought to point out. Strangely, if you charge it from a mains USB charger at the same time, there is no static. Many people will charge the speaker independently of using it, of course, so it’s not that big an issue. The good thing is that, thanks to a modification, you are able to charge it and use it at the same time.
Overall
Overall, I love this new speaker. It’s only £12 (plus postage) and is extremely portable. I expect from a Model B the sound isn’t quite as good, but the Model B+ is excellent. The build quality is very good and the sound produced is of very high quality. I will give this speaker a score of 9/10.
You can buy this speaker from The Pi Hut by following this link (they have a sale August Bank Holiday weekend that means you can get it for £10.80 + postage).
Founder of Raspberry Jams nominated for Digital Award – vote now!
Alan O’Donohoe, who started the Raspberry Jam phenomenon, and is just a generally good man and nice chap has been nominated for the Volunteer Digital Hero category of the TalkTalk Digital Heroes Awards. I can’t say enough good stuff about Alan. Without him, we wouldn’t have Raspberry Jams and we wouldn’t have the Raspberry Jamboree. He’s responsible for the growth of personal contact in the Raspberry Pi community, a community which can be very virtual at times. Instead, you get to come along to Jams and talk to like-minded individuals and get your hands on some really cool tech. If he wins the award, he’s planning to use the money he gets to launch Jam Packed which will bring educational technology events to areas of the country that don’t normally get them, either because they’re too remote or they’re too deprived of funds. Sounds like a great plan. You can read more here and you can vote for Alan by going to the Digital Heroes website.
I urge you to vote for Alan and tweet and blog as much as you can! 🙂
New Raspberry Jam in Croydon, UK for Raspberry Pi owners
Jarle Teigland has been working tirelessly to set-up a new Raspberry Jam in Croydon, south of the City of London. He’s secured a great venue at LivesNotKnives (pictured below) and the first one will be on Saturday, 25th October from 12-4pm. Tickets will be available from Monday on EventBrite. It looks like there’s space for around 80 people from the EventBrite event so there should be quite a buzz. Jarle’s a great guy who’s really got a passion for all things Pi, so I reckon it’ll be a great event – support it if you can!
New LCD board Kickstarter for the Raspberry Pi
Paul Brown, who invented the MyPiFi board a few months ago and successfully funded it through Kickstarter, has come out with his second board. This time, it’s for using LCD screens. You can see the board in action below:
It’s a very quick, easy and cheap way to get started with these LCD screens (HD44780-type) with pledges starting at £5 for early bird boards. So, if you’re interested, head on over to his Kickstarter page.