Here’s a nice little tutorial from Dexter Industries. In it, they use a Raspberry Pi, their GrovePi add-on board, an LCD screen and a buzzer to create a system that will alert you when an open wifi network is found. Please note: this pushes the bounds of legality a little bit, but (as the tutorial says) as long as you find the network and don’t use it without permission, you’re fine. Read it and get the code here.
By now, everyone knows about the Official Raspberry Pi 7″ touchscreen. Not everyone, however, knows about the various case options that are available. So, I thought (seeing as I bought a new one the other day) that I would take you through the options that are available, and one that is not yet available.
This was the first case to be released and fits in with the normal Pimoroni ‘Pibow’ aesthetic. It is made up of 3 layers of plastic and a few other plastic pieces. It goes together quite easily, although I managed to snap one of the thinner bits of plastic. Whether this was a design flaw or just my clumsy fingers… I just don’t know. In any case, the touchscreen is sandwiched between the plastic layers and then plastic screws are used to attach the legs to the back and hold everything together. There is no protection for the Pi which sticks out the back, as you can see. The viewing angle is good, though non-adjustable. You can get two viewing angles though, depending which way you tilt it (you just have to rotate the screen by changing config.txt settings). It costs £10 plus shipping. I have one of these cases and, despite the fragility of that bit along the top that you can see in the picture, it’s nicely made enough. Shopping links: Pimoroni; The Pi Hut.
Next to be released (quite recently in fact) is the case from RS. This is sturdier than the Pimoroni case and slightly more stylish. It even features the Raspberry Pi logo embossed on the back plate. For this case, you put together the Pi and screen assembly and then drop it into the case, then you use the included 4 screws to hold the screen fast against the case. The back is fully enclosed, providing ample protection for the Raspberry Pi and there is a friction-held plate (the one with the logo on) that presses into the back to hide the Pi away. The plate is vital because removing it gives you access to the GPIO pins and allows you to use HATs (just). What it doesn’t do, however, is give you access to the SD card. That involves removing the screws and taking the whole thing apart. This case is much more suitable if you don’t want to remove the SD card regularly. The Pimoroni case is more suitable if you want to change the SD card a lot. It all depends on what you want to use it for. The viewing angle for this screen isn’t all that great: it’s a bit too upright for me, but it does lay flat on the desk if you rest it on it’s back plate. The one key disadvantage of this case is that it doesn’t allow you to power the screen from the USB port on the driver board. This is a pretty bad flaw as it means you need two power supplies or a splitter cable. Silly, really. It costs £15 plus shipping and is available from RS and The Pi Hut.
The SmartiPi Touch by Tom Murray is the newest kid on the block. So new, in fact, that it’s not due to be available until June 2016 at the latest. It started life as a Kickstarter and is now available for pre-order from Tom’s website. It costs £18.30 plus shipping from the States. It is made out of black plastic and comes with the option of LEGO-compatible holes on the front. It has LEGO holes on the back for use with Tom’s LEGO camera case. It has a removable back plate to protect the Pi and allows the use of HATs (as shown in the pic). Viewing angle is fully adjustable thanks to a rather nifty stand with screws that tighten to hold the screen at whatever angle you choose. It appears to be the most versatile of all the cases in that respect. I obviously don’t have one of these cases but I’m pretty confident that the quality will be high, based on having one of the Smarticase SmartiPi cases for the Raspberry Pi. That case is beautifully injection-moulded and is very strong; very good protection for the Pi.
As with many things, “it depends”. It depends very much what you want to use the screen for. If you want something cheap with a good viewing angle and maximum hackability, go for the Pimoroni case. If you want something more stylish with more protection for the Pi, the RS case offers a better (though more expensive) option. The SmartiPi Touch appears to be the best case in terms of versatility, but of course it’s not yet available and there’s a shipping premium to be paid if you’re in the UK. I have both the Pimoroni and RS cases. The jury’s still out on a final opinion, but I am leaning more towards the RS case for the additional protection and strength it offers.
Photo from OpusVL
The Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) which provides information, data and IT systems for health and social care organisations, including the NHS, is about to launch a telehealth pilot scheme which uses a Raspberry Pi to gather information about patients. The system is called MediPi and uses a 7 inch touch-screen tablet plus equipment including a blood pressure cuff, a finger oximeter and diagnostic scales. The device costs around £250, including the Pi, and is due to be used by an unnamed NHS trust in the next financial year. Richard Robinson is a technical integration specialist at the HSCIS and he came up with the idea after his wife returned home with equipment that would do a similar job, but which was much more expensive. He set about proving that it could be done on a budget and used JavaFX to develop a tile-based user interface. This means that the system is platform agnostic, although the Britishness (and cheapness) of the Pi is what drew him to use it. The device feeds back data to the NHS spine via a wired or wireless network connection. You can read the full story over at Computer Weekly and you can delve into more technical detail at OpusVL. Richard’s own handout for the project is available on SlideShare. UPDATE: All the code and technical specs are available on GitHub.
They say to get advice you should ask an expert. Well, when it comes to crowdfunding Raspberry Pi projects, Alex Eames of RasPi.TV is about as close to an expert as you can get with four campaigns under his belt. At the Big Birthday Weekend, Alex gave a talk on the pros and cons of crowdfunding and told of his experiences using the Kickstarter platform. You can see a video of his talk, with slides, below or you can read a text version of it on his site. It’s fascinating stuff and well worth a listen/read if you’re planning on crowdfunding your own project.
A beginners’ e-book on Minecraft: Pi Edition is available for free today from Packt Publishing. I’ve not read it myself, but Packt books tend to be pretty good, and Minecraft is very popular, so head over to Packt now and register to download you free copy.
The Foundation has written and published a wonderful resource that uses the SenseHAT and camera module to carry out scientific experiments. These experiments are an ideal cross-curriculum resource for schools that want to introduce computing into science lessons (or vice versa). Assuming people will be able to get hold of the necessary materials, I can also imagine that home users will get an immense amount of enjoyment from the resource.
Directly quoting the introduction to the resource, here is what students will learn:
That’s quite an educational shopping list if you ask me!
The resource contains lesson plans, student worksheets and a list of material you will need to carry out the full set of lessons.
It’s a brilliant idea to use the SenseHAT in schools, and the resource is exactly what I’d like to see more of – easy-to-use lesson plans that take the hard work out of planning lessons and just let teachers get on with teaching the Raspberry Pi way!
