A group of educators had a great time at Picademy just recently. Elani McDonald has done a lovely write-up of her experiences over on her blog. Read it here.
Sinclair Spectrums join together with Raspberry Pi to solve 33-year old programming problem
When the ZX Spectrum was launched in 1982, chapter 19 contained a programming problem: use the BEEP command to play Mahler’s first symphony funeral march. Well, some programmers from Oxford’s Museum of the History of Science, led by Matt Westcott, have taken 12 Spectrum computers and networked them together with a Raspberry Pi. The Pi controls the individual Spectrum computers in order to achieve playback. Read more here or take a look at the video below:
Windows 10 IoT preview for Raspberry Pi 2 released
When the Raspberry Pi 2 was launched, there was much hoo-hah about it being able to run Windows 10, and that it would be free. After much speculation, discussion, deliberation and outright mis-information, we eventually found out that the Pi wouldn’t be running the full desktop version but instead it would run some kind of embedded version suitable for developers, rather than home users who “just want Windows”.
Following the first day of Microsoft’s Build 2015 conference, it was announced that the preview version of “Windows 10 IoT” is now available to download and install on your Raspberry Pi. In order to install it, you will need a PC running the Windows 10 IoT preview version and virtual machines are not supported (according to this article over on CNX). You can get started installing the new operating system by visiting the Getting Started guide. Below is a video of one person’s experience booting it up for the first time. It’s not what you’d call speedy, but then this is a preview version and I’d hope that speed would improve as new versions emerge.
It’s an exciting development, particularly for those who want to explore development on the Windows platform, but I can’t help feel that there are significant barriers to entry that won’t help in these initial stages. Needing a PC running the same environment seems to be a bit of a backwards step from the “download-it-install-it-and-go” approach of Raspbian, and not supporting virtual machines is a definite disadvantage – how many of us have a machine lying about onto which we can install an unstable preview version of a peculiar edition of Windows?
I think most people should wait a little while. Preview versions are notoriously difficult to deal with – for preview, read “Beta” or even “Alpha” – and I would expect the software to need a few months of improvements before it is truly usable.
I don’t want to leave this article on a downbeat note, however, so if you’ve got the time and the equipment, I urge you to give it a go and feedback to the community how easy it was to install and use and get that initial blink sketch going! (I reckon there’s a bug in that code – LED_PIN is never defined – so be patient with it!)
Beginnings of a greenhouse monitor project using a Raspberry Pi
Romilly Cocking and his wife own an allotment about half a kilometre from where they live. Romilly wanted to set up a wireless monitor between the greenhouse on the allotment and their home. To do this, he’s experimenting with a Wireless Things (previously Ciseco) XinoRF (which is a wireless-enabled Arduino compatible board) which will be battery powered and seeing if he can get the Raspberry Pi at his home to pick up the signal. This is just in the preliminary stages at the moment, and Romilly isn’t even sure if the signal will carry that far, but he’s blogged about it and posted up the code he’s using in his proof-of-concept. Read more here.
Raspberry Pi Foundation welcomes new CEO
A couple of months ago, the Raspberry Pi Foundation were advertising for a new CEO to replace Lance Howarth. Well, they have now found him in the shape of Philip Colligan. Philip, who comes from Nesta will start in July and oversee all the Foundation’s charitable activities, which includes outreach, education and that sort of thing. Nesta is all about encouraging young people to become makers, so Philip is well-suited to the role. I really hope he’s able to hit the ground running and take the Foundation’s activities to the next level.
Welcome Philip!
Monitor pot-holes with a Raspberry Pi
George Mallingbury has taken a GPS serial device and an XLoBorg board (from PiBorg – it’s got an accelerometer on it) and attached them to his Pi. He’s then used some Python and SQL commands to record the jolts, jiggles and bumps caused by rough road surfaces. His results are really good and really show the number of pot holes he’s driven over. He’s provided all the source code (linked from his blog page) so take a look here.
Thanks to PiBorg for spotting this and putting it on Facebook!