Dan Aldred, who created the mighty Pi Glove has used an Energenie Pi-mote IR sensor board to pick up the infrared signals for his (pretty darned cool) robot and then used the Pi to re-transmit the signals according to his program or web interface. You can read his write-up and tutorial over on his blog.
Huddersfield Raspberry Jam – 8th August
There will be a Raspberry Jam at the Huddersfield Library (in the Sound and Vision Library part) on Saturday 8th August from 11am to 3pm. You can book free tickets from their website.
Raspberry Pi internet monitor boasts a biiiiiiig light tower
Instructables user talk2bruce has created a truly great tutorial. In it, he shows you how to build a highly visible internet monitor. The Raspberry Pi is used to ping a site on the internet and then, based on the response, switches the lights in a light tower from red to amber to green. The Instructable is very long, very comprehensive and covers both the hardware build (including a laser-cut wooden case) and the software, virtually line-by-line. Read the Instructable here.
Raspberry Pi controlled BBQ for briskets!
Wired magazine have published an article about a group of Harvard engineering students who have built themselves a brisket smoker. The students embarked on the project as part of one of their engineering modules at the University and have come up with something that they may end up commercialising if the figures work out. The smoker uses a Raspberry Pi and algorithmic programming to maintain the temperature of the oven. Read more here.
RasPi.TV does something different with mixed Mailbag video
Raspberry Pi vlogger and blogger Alex Eames over at RasPi.TV has decided to try out something different. He’s taken 6 products that he’s been sent fairly recently and done a quick ‘mailbag’ video of them. This lets us, as viewers, see what kind of stuff is out there. He’s gone all interactive (oo-er) as well by asking what viewers would like to see him review in detail. Great idea, Alex. See the mailbag video here and have your say in the comments.
Social network monitor with Pygame on the Raspberry Pi
Richard “Average Man” Saville has built on Spencer Organ’s work on his PiTFT Internet Radio to create a “social network monitor”. He uses web-page scraping to get the data he needs (such as number of followers on Twitter, number of ‘likes’ on Facebook) and then displays it onto the PiTFT using Pygame. The work is completely documented as a tutorial and, as usual, he’s done a bang-up job on it. Read how to create your own Raspberry Pi social network monitor here.