Raspberry Jam in Horsham, West Sussex for #RaspberryPi enthusiasts

There will be a Raspberry Jam in Horsham on Sunday, July 20th from 1pm-4pm. Hosted by St Mary’s CE Primary School (recent winners of the PA Consulting Raspberry Pi Competition) and they are currently looking for people to express an interest in attending and, perhaps, demonstrating some of their Pi projects. The full address of the venue is:

St Mary’s CE Primary School
Normandy
Horsham
West Sussex
RH12 1JL

The school will be demonstrating both of it’s entries in to the PA Consulting competition and expect to have around 12 tables available for the display of other projects. There will also be a drop-in Scratch intro workshop running throughout the day. Rest assured, there is plenty of parking on-site.

For more details and to express an interest in participating or attending, please contact hackhorsham@gmail.com

#RaspberryPi Compute Module Development Kit now available

Exciting news from the Raspberry Pi Foundation today. The development kit for the new Compute Module is now available from RS (£170 including VAT and delivery) and Element14 (£152 including VAT and delivery). Not too sure why there is such a price discrepancy, but I guess that’s competition for you! More information about capabilities and current compatibility with Raspbian is available over on the Foundation blog.

#RaspberryPi bluetooth receiver for car stereo


Parker Reed decided he wanted to allow his car stereo to play audio received over bluetooth. So, he hooked up a Raspberry Pi with a bluetooth dongle to his car’s cigarette lighter power socket (using a USB adapter) and altered various start-up files. Then, it was just a case of wiring in the 3.5mm socket on the Pi to a line-in on his car stereo. You can read how he did it over on Reddit.

My #RaspberryPi Anniversary

Not much to report this evening apart from a quick mention of my second Pi-versary. Two years ago on this date, I received my first Raspberry Pi (see the picture of the box above!). I didn’t have a clue what to do with it, and didn’t have time to use it straight away but soon after I booted it up and had a play. That same day, I started this blog!

I soon started to go the Milton Keynes Raspberry Jams, run by Peter Onion, and got inspired to create the Picorder, which was featured on the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s blog on 6th March 2013 (the most hits my blog has ever received happened that day!).

Over the past two years, I’ve tried to get involved with the great Raspberry Pi community. Spurred on by the MK Jam, I decided to revive the Cambridge Raspberry Jam and my first one was on Saturday, 18th May 2013 at the University of Cambridge Centre for Mathematical Sciences. We had 50 people in one room, some great presentations, a bit of show-and-tell and a general geek-out along the lines of the MK Jam. The next Jam was on 20th July at Cambridge Consultants – we had 60 people, a lot more show-and-tell and some more presentations. Around that time, I was privileged to be approached by Tim Richardson who thought that together we could make much more of the Jams. With this in mind, and with massive amounts of aid from Andy Batey, we moved into new premises: the Institute of Astronomy. The first Jam there was on 21st September. We had almost twice as many people, and more facilities to play with and since then it’s grown and grown. I couldn’t do the Jams without Tim now, and we were asked to be on the Jam experts panel at the Raspberry Jamboree in Manchester this year.

I think the best moments for me have been at the CamJams during the workshops we’ve organised – seeing people, especially kids, actually do the stuff, learning, playing, working together and coming out the other side with a deeper appreciation of programming and electronics.

So, what’s happening next? For me, more blogging and Jam organising. For the Raspberry Pi? Something exciting, I reckon.