Raspberry Pi laptops are somewhat of a holy grail for Pi users. You can, of course, just buy a Pi Top and build it from their kit. Or, alternatively you could go the DIY route as Instructables user Prosnow22 has done. He’s taken a Raspberry Pi, the official touch screen, a Rii keyboard and a lot of 3D-printed parts and made his own. You can see how he did it here.
Frustrated with an inability to find a cost-effective karaoke machine with enough useful features to make it workable, Harry Gonzalez-Rivera decided to take a cheaper karaoke machine and cram a Raspberry Pi Zero inside. He added a USB audio card and wi-fi adapter, as well as a small hub, to create connectivity and all he needed to do then was to plug the HDMI cable and microphone in. You can read more about the system over at The MagPi and you can view the code behind it here.
Hong Kong-based modulogeek has taken his toddler’s toy glockenspiel and created an servo-motor based control for it. He has then fused this with a monome interface device which is controlled by the Raspberry Pi running the Python sequencer code. Together, he has created a lovely musical instrument that is part tech, part art piece. The code is available here and you can see it in action above.
Thanks to Pi Weekly for spotting this one!
Over at OtherMod.com, the blog owner has been tearing down and rebuilding a Sony PSP and retrofitting it with a Raspberry Pi Zero. I love projects like this: taking broken technology and using some Pi magic to make it usable again. By the end, only the casing and the controls from the original unit will be used and inside will be stuffed the Zero and a lot of small bits and pieces. You can follow along with their efforts here.
Southend Tech and Enterprise4Good are holding the 10th Southend Raspberry Jam at the Hive Enterprise Centre in Southend on Saturday 20th August from 10am-5pm. There will be talks, workshops and a marketplace featuring Rapid Electronics. Sounds like it’ll be a great event. You definitely need to book as tickets are going fast! More details and tickets are available here.
Over at Hackaday.io, Ebin Philip has written an account of his ophthalmoscope (eye retina scanner) powered by a Raspberry Pi and a camera module. The device, which costs about $400 all-in, has been designed to scan the target eye for Diabetic Retinopathy which is a complication of diabetes causing damage to the retina, eventually leading to blindness. Normally, scanners cost in the region of $10-25k so this is an incredible achievement. You can read a lot more about the device, and some of the science behind it, here.
