World-class hacker Dave Hunt has made a touch-screen mobile phone concept piece with his Pi. The guts of the thing is a Sim900 GSM/GPRS module which handles the communications to the mobile network and he’s using a PiTFT screen for the user interface. Take a look at this – it’s brilliant! He has also released the source code here.
The Average Man has done a great round-up of the ways to use headers in various ways with the Pi. He looks at techniques for breaking them apart and at the various breakout and plugin boards you can use. Read it here.
Lauren Orsini has followed up her aquarium-temperature-monitoring project with an extra bit of programming which uses Twilio to facilitate tweeting when the tank is overheating. Read how she did it here.
Ryan Walmsley is currently running an IndieGoGo campaign for a cheap robotics kit for the Raspberry Pi.
For £33 you get:
So far, the campaign has raised almost 350% of the funds needed so you’ll definitely get the kit. I happen to know Ryan’s already started putting the kits together so delivery should be fairly quick.
In my opinion, £33 delivered is an absolute bargain for what you get. All you need to complete you robot is the Pi itself, an SD card for the operating system, some batteries for the motors and a power source for the Pi. For an extra couple of pounds, Ryan will solder everything up for you including the controller board and the motor wires.
The campaign finishes at midday on Monday so if you want to get in on the offer, you’d better move quick. You can visit the IndieGoGo page here.
I keep an eye on the User Groups & Events forum on the Raspberry Pi Foundation website, mostly for the purposes of CamJam, but also just to keep informed of what different groups are out there. I’m going to start featuring the groups and events on my blog as I reckon that they should be given as much prominence and publicity as possible!
The first group to be featured is based at Selly Oak Library, Birmingham (669 Bristol Road, Selly Oak, Birmingham, B29 6AE). They hold monthly Pi Club sessions where Pi owners (and prospective Pi owners) can get together, swap information on what they’ve been doing, and support each other if they’ve run into problems. They have 4 Raspberry Pis set-up and it’s also a great opportunity for people without Pis to have a go before they get their own little computers.
The group is open to everyone and they have people with different experience levels in attendance.
The next event is on Saturday, 26th April between 11am and 1pm and the one after is on Saturday 24th May at the same time.
More information is available via email from selly.oak.library@birmingham.gov.uk.
Just spotted this on the Foundation’s blog. Callum Jefferies and a few of his colleagues over at Made by Many decided to take the Internet of Things a bit too far. By hooking up some reed switches to a Raspberry Pi (and constructing a LEGO prototype), they were able to track which toilets were in use at which time. This means that the days of toilet queues are over. You can read more about it over on their blog.
