Picorder

Picorder update: and so it goes…

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For those not aware of the Picorder project, read more here.

As with all best laid plans, they are susceptible to Murphy’s Law – all that can go wrong, will go wrong.

I was just about to go out to the Cambridge Raspberry Jam, with all my work on the PPC so far ready to go… Then I decided to test it.

At which point the Bluetooth connection to my Rii Keyboard/pad didn’t work and then… to top it all off… after all my work on my 7″ screen, that stopped working too.

Felt rather deflated after that so didn’t go to the Jam. Wish I had have done, but the old depression came back so didn’t.

Anyway, so this is a quick update to say what works and what doesn’t:

  • The enclosure – a portable DVD player stripped out. This was okay, slightly reliant on electrical tape holding it together, but okay… Apart from space. I’ve decided to switch enclosure (not sure for definite what yet but the top candidate is an old Playstation 1) as I need more space for the hub, breadboard and Pi.
  • Circuitry – I picked up a Pi Plate to solder a semi-permanent bunch of stuff eventually, but for now it’s done on a breadboard.
  • Sensors – got the TMP102 temperature sensor working very well, plus a script to round the reading to 1 decimal place. Also got the SR04 ultrasonic sensor working reading distances based on the speed of sound and converting them to centimetres. Very cool, though a bit inaccurate as it has a 15 degree reading field of ‘vision’.
  • Display – had a 7″ composite screen working. Having shortened and soldered the cable, everything was lovely up until I decided to test it (see above). Now it is powered but no signal. Joy. I’m determined it will form part of the PiPodCorder, but might have to use it ‘just’ for maintenance/debugging. At least until touchscreens come down a bit.
  • Readout – the 16×2 LCD display is working again (after a rather fraught few hours with a Pi Cobbler from Adafruit). Not displaying text, but the backlight is back anyway! This is a prime candidate for fixing to the Pi Plate.
  • Pi Cobbler – mine arrived… I soldered it… I soldered it again… I still have at least one pin not working. This would make life a lot easier. I’m wanting it so that I can solder things to the Pi Plate for ‘permanent’ and then use the Cobbler out to a breadboard for developing functions.

Not much what you’d call actual progress, but it does mean I now have Fritzing diagrams of all my circuits so pulling the breadboard wires out doesn’t hold so much fear now.

Short term: enclosure, screen, LCD.

Long term: Cobbler, plate.

And by long term, I mean in time for the MK Raspberry Jam… Next Sunday!!! Yikes!

Raspberry Pi Foundation

Arduino and Raspberry Pi: We need them in classrooms across the country

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From TechZim in Zimbabwe:

The world we live in is immensely dependent on technology and that means we require a more technically skilled workforce to produce and maintain the required technology.

Imagine if we could give school children cheap computers to play with, learn how to code, and hack some cool hardware projects. Teach them computer science and technology early on in their academic lives. Well, it is possible with the Raspberry Pi computer and the Arduino microcontroller.

Read the whole article here: Arduino and Raspberry Pi: We need them in classrooms across the country | Techzim.

Raspberry Pi Foundation, Tutorials

Foolproof operating System install instructions for Raspberry Pi on Windows

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Exactly what it says on the tin. These are instructions from Raspi.TV on how to download and write an operating system image onto an SD card for the Raspberry Pi.

A couple of teachers asked me to do some instructions for them at the Milton Keynes Jam on how to download and install the OS for the Pi. They have to get incredibly good at this task as they will likely have to carry out this process several times a week, what with students tinkering and messing up! 🙂
Alex at Raspi.TV has done a great job on some instructions and so, rather than re-invent the wheel, I thought I would just point people at it.

Visit the link below for the instructions:
http://raspi.tv/2012/how-to-make-a-raspberry-pi-disk-image-to-sd-card-with-win32diskimager

Blogroll, Raspberry Pi Foundation

RPi aggregated RSS news feed available

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RSS logo

All my RSS news feeds are now available as an aggregated feed. Subscribe here.

More information below!

First off, if you don’t know what an RSS feed or reader is…

  • An RSS feed is essentially a webpage containing summaries of, for example, blog posts. The RSS feed is ‘subscribed’ to using a ‘reader’, which is a piece of software for reading these summaries.
  • The reader software can be online, or on your PC/Mac/etc. The one I use is Google Reader at www.google.com/reader
  • An ‘aggregated feed’ effectively turns several RSS feeds into a single RSS feed.

After much deliberation and a fair amount of hunting through software, I’ve decided to publish my 135 RSS feeds as an aggregated feed. This means that if you subscribe to the aggregated feed, as I add more sites to the aggregated feed, you will start to see these new sites appear in your reader.

To subscribe, use the following URL in your RSS reader

http://www.google.com/reader/public/atom/user%2F10025320280437270102%2Flabel%2FRaspberryPI

This is a public folder of feeds from my Google Reader account presented using Google’s own interface (which I really had to search around for… talk about long-winded!)

If you know of any sites that publish good, informative news, tutorials, tips and/or experiences with the Raspberry Pi, please add a comment to this post and I will make sure that it’s added.