Cornwall-based news site The Cornishman has featured Raspberry Pi’s Dave Honess in a special report which covers his work on Astro Pi. Read the article here. It’s a nice article which explains Astro Pi and talks about some of the winning projects.
Raspberry Pi Robotics Projects book – 50% off with a discount code
Richard Grimmett’s book “Raspberry Pi Robotics Projects” is currently on sale for 50% off from the O’Reilly online bookshop. Usually selling for $35.99, it is available for $17.99 using discount code “DEAL”. This offer does expire tomorrow so get in quick if you want the book! Take a look here.
Raspberry Pi alarm clock & music player surrounded by black walnut and maple
Peter Roca has created a piece of bedside furniture and embedded a Raspberry Pi into it. He calls it Bedbot, a Daytime Initialization Assistant. This beautifully constructed table, made out of black walnut and maple, acts as an alarm clock and music player. It sounds very small-scale, but as you can see from the pictures above and below, it’s anything but. He’s done a full write-up of construction, hardware and software on his blog. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has done a nice write-up of the project here.
Ipswich Raspberry Jam – 8th August
Just a quick reminder for this forthcoming event.
The first ever Ipswich Raspberry Jam will be held on 8th August at The Enterprise + Innovation Hub at Ipswich County Library, Northgate Street, Ipswich. The event runs from 10-4 and is being split into two sessions. The first session (from 10-1pm) will be for newbies and beginners while the second (1-4pm) will be for more experienced users/non-newbies. More information is available from the Jam website and tickets for the two separate sessions are available here.
Raspberry Pi/RetroPi gaming machine tutorial
Spencer Organ has written up a great tutorial on creating a retro gaming machine from a Raspberry Pi and a small composite monitor. It adds a nice method for building the machine to some other tutorials and brings it all together. Read the tutorial here.
Plotter made from two optical drives and a Raspberry Pi
Norbert Heinz cannibalised two optical drives for their parts, then hooked them up to a Raspberry Pi via a couple of H-bridge chips before adding an arm with a pen. This gave him a drawing mechanism that could be programmatically moved on the X and Y axis. He then added a stepper motor to enable the pen to be lifted on the Z axis and voila, he has managed to create a plotter. You can read more about his build, and perhaps replicate it, on his blog.