A few weeks ago, I published my own review of Pi Supply’s Pi Juice. Well, now Les Pounder has got hold of the board and written up his own review. It’s a great, comprehensive and well-written review and you should check it out if you’re interested in pre-ordering the battery solution for yourself. Read the review here.
Cotswold Raspberry Jam is happening again on Saturday 27 January from 1-4pm at the University of Gloucestershire in Cheltenham. This month, their workshops include special sessions on updating and backing-up your Raspberry Pi, so you can find out how to make sure you have the latest versions of Pi software. Keeping your software up-to-date not only fixes bugs and keeps things secure, but can also be a prerequisite to following online tutorials. They’ll also show you how to back up your files, including those all-important Minecraft worlds and Python projects, onto a USB memory stick.
Other activities include Minecraft coding, making your own reaction timer with LEDs and buttons and Micro Pi Noon balloon-popping robots. Cotswold Jam also has special prizes for those who bring along their own projects to show off – and it’s a great place to get help with half-finished projects.
Spread across a whole university building with five rooms, free parking, and only 10 minutes’ walk from the railway station, this is a large, family-friendly event, so bring along mum, dad, brothers, sisters, vaguely embarrassed boyfriends and that goth you met in the library!
Book your free tickets on Eventbrite. You can visit the Jam website here.
The Raspberry Pi Zero has always had the issue that the owner of the Zero has needed to solder their own headers if they wanted them. Until now, the only non-solder solution has been the Pimoroni Hammer Header kit. Well, The Pi Hut and Pimoroni have just now announced the availability of the Raspberry Pi Zero WH – a Zero W with the header professionally soldered in place. This is sure to be of interest to those people who want the cheaper Pi but want to do physical computing without soldering. You can pick one up for around £13.30 (plus shipping) from The Pi Hut or Pimoroni.
Hi everyone,
I just thought I’d bring to your attention three events from Cambridge Raspberry Jam that are coming up in the next few months.
The first is, in fact, a CamJam – a full Jam including workshops, a Marketplace, talks & Show and Tell. It takes place on Saturday, 27th January at Impington Village College (which is just North of Cambridge itself, just off the A14). The event is completely free and you can pick up free tickets from Eventbrite.
The second event is Potton Pi & Pints – a smaller, more social (but entirely Family Friendly!) Jam which takes place upstairs at our local pub (The Rising Sun) in Potton, Bedfordshire. The date for this one is Saturday, 3rd March and is part of the Raspberry Pi Big Birthday Weekend in which Jams from all over the world are holding their events over the same weekend. In our case, we’re holding our Jam in the afternoon so that people can attend the Milton Keynes Raspberry Jam in the morning and then shoot over to ours in the afternoon. Tickets for Potton Pi & Pints have only just been made available. They’re free and they’re available from Eventbrite. We had a great time at our Christmas event, and we always look forward to this one!
Last, but not by any means least, we have our third event, Pi Wars. This is the fourth time we’ve run this highly successful event. Over 70 teams (some of them from as far afield as Hong Kong, Turkey and the USA) compete over the weekend of 21st-22nd April on our seven fiendish challenge courses. We invite as many people as possible to attend the event, which is taking place at the prestigious Cambridge Computer Laboratory, to spectate and enjoy the competitive, yet very friendly atmosphere. There’s plenty to see and there’s even a Sponsors’ Marketplace to pick up Pi-related goodies. More information about the event can be found on the Pi Wars website and you can book your tickets here. Tickets are free for under-18s and just £5 per day for adults (£7 for the whole weekend). Here’s a video of last year’s competition from the perspective of one of the teams:
Here’s a nice project which is sure to get TV lovers making. BBTinkerer has taken a Raspberry Pi Zero W and some simple circuitry and wrapped it in a nice enclosure. This Pi device has been programmed to generate IR codes to control an AV set-up and it does so with a programming library called LIRC. He’s then created a web UI for the device which can be accessed from a mobile phone, thus enabling him to control his television from his phone. You can read the (extensive) instructions on how to do it yourself here.
Cute Dog Alert!
It must be Animal Day…
Jennifer Fox’s dog (pictured above – awwww, cuteness!) has a habit of barking whilst Jennifer is away from the house. This does not go down well with the neighbours. So, she’s developed a system which monitors the sound levels in the house and then plays a sound file to calm the dog down. To monitor the sound level, she uses a MEMs microphone board from SparkFun together with a good old MCP3002 analog to digital converter. She also uploads any data produced to CloudMQTT. You can read about this lovely project over on the FoxBot Industries blog.
Here’s a demo of the system in action:
