Raspberry Pi Pod and micro:bit base

FUZE BASIC upgraded to support the Raspberry Pi SenseHAT

by Michael Horne • 6 October 2015 • 0 Comments

Some great news for owners of the FUZE platform. An update has been released that means you can now interface with the Raspberry Pi SenseHAT using the FUZE BASIC language. The following commands have been added:

senseRGBcolour – sets the active colour
sensePlot – turns on an LED at the specified location
senseLine – plots a line of LEDs
senseRect – plots a rectangle of LEDs
senseScroll – shifts the LED in the specified direction
senseCLS – clears the LED matrix
SenseGyroX – returns the GyroX value
SenseGyroY – as above etc. and same for all below
SenseGyroZ, SenseAccelX, SenseAccelY, SenseAccelZ, SenseCompassX, SenseCompassY,
SenseCompassZ, SensePressure, SenseHeight, SenseHumidity and SenseTemperature.

You can find instructions on how to download the new version here.

The SenseHAT attaches to the FUZE by way of the interface board which replicates the GPIO pins. You can see it in action in the video below:

Big Data, Making, Programming, Tutorials

Track aircraft near you with PiAware on the Raspberry Pi

by Michael Horne • 4 October 2015 • 0 Comments

Martin O’Hanlon wanted to track aircraft near him. So, he installed PiAware on his Raspberry Pi and then wrote some simple Python to detect when an aircraft was nearby and then light up an LED. It’s a simple project, but it’s a pretty cool one. Read how he did it here.

Events, Podcast, Video

New episode of Pimoroni’s Bilge Tank now online

by Michael Horne • 3 October 2015 • 0 Comments

The fourth episode of Pimoroni’s Bilge Tank is now online. Paul Beech is fresh back from the New York Maker Faire and takes us through what he saw there. Great stuff for old and young geeks alike. Not much about the Raspberry Pi in this episode, but that’s okay – it’s a great videocast as usual!

Accessories, Camera module, Video, Wearable

Make your own Raspberry Pi night vision goggles

by Michael Horne • 2 October 2015 • 0 Comments

Maker/enthusiast Mr Fid has taken a cheap pair of video goggles and attached a Raspberry Pi, a Pi NoIR camera and an IR light source. He has then fed the composite video output of the Pi into the goggles and made himself a cheap night-vision apparatus. Read how he did it on his Instructable.

Programming, Raspberry Pi Foundation

New GPIO wrapper library for the Raspberry Pi

by Michael Horne • 2 October 2015 • 0 Comments

Ben Nuttall has been working hard to create a library which will provide a simpler interface to the GPIO pins. The library is called GPIO Zero. At the moment, on the RPi.GPIO library, there are a couple of commands to set things like the pin numbering system that kids are often told to just “enter and forget about”. This library obfuscates these commands to simplify matters. An example is shown below:

from gpiozero import LED
red = LED(2)
red.on()

Ben has built in several add-on boards so far and aims to make it the easiest way to program the GPIO in Python on the Pi. It’s actually a wrapper for the good old RPi.GPIO library, so existing code will still work the same way. You can read documentation and more information on PythonHosted.org as well as instructions on how to install it. Please bear in mind this is a beta so your mileage may vary!

Software, Tutorials

Install Chromium 45 on Jessie on the Raspberry Pi 2

by Michael Horne • 2 October 2015 • 1 Comment

Conor O’Neill has found out that the Ubuntu developers have been continuing to build Pi-compatible versions of desktop browser Chromium. He has documented a way to install it on the new Jessie version of Raspbian on his website. As he points out in his post, this newer version of Chromium gives you access to most of the apps and extensions in the Chrome Web Store, including the Espruino Chrome App so you can programme that little device direct from the Pi. Read the instructions here.