Chris Penn is organising a Raspberry Jam at Coventry Central Library on 22nd October. The Jam, which runs from 11am-1pm will feature Minecraft workshops and show-and-tell. You can get free tickets here.
Using the Picap peripheral with the Raspberry Pi to take a Quality poll with conductive ink
Picap is a new product from Bare Conductive. It gives an easy way to connect up wires to your Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins (via crocodile clips) and is designed to receive input from conductive sources. They sent me one recently, so I’ll be doing a review in a little while. Until then, here’s an example of it in use from Claire Garside. She’s used the Picap as a method for the family to choose which flavour of Quality Street sweet should’ve been replaced by something more tasty! Read a bit more about the project here.
Raspberry Pi announces the introduction of Pixel – a new look for the Raspbian desktop environment
Simon Long has blogged over on raspberrypi.org about an upgrade to the desktop environment of Raspbian, the standard distro for the Raspberry Pi. There are loads of tweaks and lots of polish including, but not limited to, theme background photographs, new icons and changes to the main window style. Perhaps the biggest changes are those involving installed packages with both remote control software RealVNC and the Chromium browser now included by default. Full details and instructions for installing the updates onto existing images can be found here. To download a fresh copy, visit the Downloads page.
Pi Supply launches JustBoom – a range of audio add-on boards for the Raspberry Pi
JustBoom DAC HAT
Pi Supply have launched a massive range of audio add-on boards for the Raspberry Pi. Called JustBoom, the range includes the following:
- DAC HAT – a plug and play, high resolution, digital-to-analog converter (£30).
- Digi HAT – producing an unmodified, high quality, digital audio data stream for “bit-perfect transmission to your hifi system (£30).
- Amp HAT – a high quality audio amplifier which also includes digital to analog conversion (£60).
- DAC Zero pHAT – same as the DAC HAT but in the Pi Zero form-factor (£20).
- Digi Zero pHAT – same as the Digi HAT but in the Pi Zero form-factor (£24).
- Amp Zero pHAT – same as the Amp HAT but in the Pi Zero form-factor (£24).
- Standalone Amp and DAC – for those who want to de-couple from the Pi (£60 and £35).
- A range of cases that will take the Pi and add-on board (£13).
I haven’t got any of these to test out and I haven’t seen any reviews yet to compare it to the similar offerings by IQaudIO. Should be interesting to see what reviews come out once they start getting out in the wild.
Creating simple GUIs with EasyGUI on the Raspberry Pi
Richard Saville has been looking at GUI libraries for the Pi. He’s found EasyGUI which is very useful if you want to create something basic. There are better libraries out there that do more, but having seen the code, it’s very easy to get something up-and-running very quickly with EasyGUI. Read his piece over at about.com.
Dexter Industries launches new spy-flavoured Kickstarter featuring the Raspberry Pi and lots of sensors!
Dexter Industries, who previously launched BrickPi, Arduberry and GoPiGo (and a few others) on Kickstarter, have just launched their new campaign. Called Spy vs sPi, the new product is “an engineering adventure that puts real purpose to basic design and programming skills”. Unpacking that statement, and looking at the campaign, you find that there are three aspects to the offering: the hardware, the software and the documentation.
The hardware is based around the GrovePi which is an easy-to-use system of plug-in sensors. You attach the GrovePi board to your Pi, then plug in your sensors and away you go with your code.
The software and documentation is intertwined – Spy vs sPi is a series of programming tutorials and exercises which are based on an espionage theme and teach children, and adults for that matter, how to program. The worksheet material uses a ‘capture the flag’ gaming activity to make the projects fun and practical.
The system isn’t cheap, but it is good value. It is $275 plus shipping (Earlybird, $300 thereafter) for the full kit which includes the following:
- GrovePi Base Kit (board & all 13 sensors)
- Spi v. sPi Missions Booklet
- Acrylic Sensor Mounts
- GrovePi Acrylic Case
- Raspberry Pi 3
- microSD Card with Dexter Industries Custom Software
- Mini Wi-Fi Dongle (custom Dexter Industries)
- Ethernet Cable
- Power Wall Adapter
- Cyber Missions
There are other pledge levels which cater for those who already have the Raspberry Pi, the GrovePi and for previous GoBox backers (who will have some of the sensors already). There are also ‘fun’ backing levels where you can get the logo as a 3D-printed thingy or a t-shirt. Shipping to the UK/Europe is a bit steep, though, so be aware if you’re from this side of the pond.
I wish Dexter Industries well with their campaign which is seeking to raise $30k. I love the whole idea of gamifying learning to code and who doesn’t love a good spy game? Take a look at the campaign here or view the campaign video below.