British astronaut Tim Peake launched from Baikonur at 11.03am (GMT). As part of his mission to the International Space Station, Tim will conduct experiments on two Raspberry Pi flight units that were sent up on 6th December. Here’s Tim with the world’s biggest smile during the journey into orbit:
Raspberry Pi DOTs boards now available
The DOTs board, designed by the Foundation’s Rachel Rayns, is now available to buy online. The board, which uses conductive paint in a dot-to-dot fashion, is supplied with a plugin for Minecraft Pi Edition which will draw the outline of the aeroplane shown on the board. You can also use the board to create games and example code is supplied to get you going.
The Pi Hut is the exclusive supplier of the boards. For a single one, the price is £5. There are also great discounts if you want to buy more than 30 or more than 100 of them for schools and conferences. The paint that you’ll need is a little on the expensive side but it pays to buy the larger pot if you’re going to be using it with multiple people.
Run a Raspberry Pi from a LiPo battery
Daniel Bull has written up some excellent instructions for wiring up and soldering an Adafruit PowerBoost LiPo charger onto a Raspberry Pi. He’s used a Zero for this initial hack but you should be able to use any Raspberry Pi (the lower-powered the better). The instructions are available on GitHub and to talk to Daniel, get advice on implementing it and to discuss his approach, you can use this G+ post. It’s a brilliant hack, especially as the PowerBoost has a charging circuit built in to give you a self-contained system.
Looking inside a standard “yellow motor”
Richard (aka Average Man) used to like taking things apart when he was a youngster. This tendency has not diminished with age and he’s turned his attention to one of those standard “yellow motors”, such as those that come with the CamJam EduKit 3. He’s done a breakdown of every part of the motor. Well worth a look for those with a curious mind!
Montreal user group for the Raspberry Pi – people wanted!
Christophe Reverd has been in touch about setting up a user group for Raspberry Pi enthusiasts in Montreal, Canada. So, I’m putting out a big call for anyone in the area to get in contact with him about it. There’s a Facebook group and a Twitter account already set up, and if anyone wants to get in contact via email, please email me first (mike@recantha.co.uk). There is also a Google Form to fill in (which is in French) Although the group is predominantly French-speaking, English speakers are also very welcome!
Raspberry Pi with Java – book review
Robert Savage, over on his Home Automation blog, has written an in-depth review of the book “Raspberry Pi with Java: Programming the Internet of Things”. Sounds like a pretty good book and he goes through it chapter-by-chapter. Read the review here.