Connor Yamada has done a nice write-up of his project to create an ‘action camera’ with his Raspberry Pi and Camera Module. The results are mixed, to say the least, but it does show what is possible with a bit of 3D printing know-how and a bit of help from Alex Eames and his RaspiCamcorder script. It also shows the limitations with the camera module and capturing high-speed footage. Read more here and see some footage below.
The TrafficHAT from RyanTeck is a simple-to-use add-on board for later models of the Raspberry Pi. It plugs into the 40-pin GPIO header and gives you access to 3 large LEDs, a button and a buzzer. It sounds simple, and it is, and that’s the beauty of it. The kit comes in a bag:
and contains all the bits you’ll need to solder onto the circuit board. The GPIO header and the resistors are pre-soldered surface-mount components so all that’s left is to solder the LEDs, buzzer and switch. For the experienced solderer, this will take less than 10 minutes. For a beginner, it will obviously take longer than that but it is excellent for teaching you the basics of soldering because of the large components.
Programming it is very easy and can be accomplished using both ScratchGPIO (which Ryan has personally modded) and, of course, Python. I knocked up a quick Python script just to test the board out and the results can be seen in the short video below:
The TrafficHAT is the natural successor to the Pibrella, although it doesn’t have the protected inputs and outputs of the older board. It also doesn’t break out the unused GPIO pins, which means it’s use is limited. But that is its charm – it’s simple. It’s simple enough to put together and simple enough to program and is ideal for anyone who wants to learn how to program real-world electronics from the Raspberry Pi.
Rating: 9/10
The TrafficHAT will soon be available directly from RyanTeck for £7.75 plus postage (£1.50), and as an introduction to programming and soldering I believe it’s well worth the money.
Carsten Mönning over at the SAP Community Network has written the start of an intriguing series of blog posts on creating a Hadoop cluster with several Raspberry Pi 2s. This initial post just covers setting up Hadoop on a single Pi, and future instalments will go into further depth on getting a proper cluster set-up and interacting with it. This is an extremely useful skill to learn and I hope people follow the series as it progresses. Read the first part here.
The guys over at Hypriot have been using Docker a lot. In this instance, they use Node.JS to drive a set of NeoPixels from the Pi. In the example, they use the Pi’s 5V power supply to provide the power directly (although this is not recommended) and an Adafruit level shifter to convert the PWM signal on pin 18 to 5V to provide the signal required for the NeoPixels. Read more here.
Over at Adafruit, Brennen Bearnes has written a great tutorial and helper script that will enable you to use an external drive as a “root partition”. This means that although your Pi still boots from the SD card, thereafter everything else is handled by the external drive. He’s used a full-sized drive here, but I guess the principle works for things like USB pen drives. Read the tutorial here.
Xian has done a great job on this LEGO rover. It utilises Lego Power Functions and the Raspberry Pi and can be controlled via a web browser. He explains his build, with block diagrams and details on wiring and explains his use of the Navio board for controlling things. Nice job, Xian. Read about it here.
