Raspberry Pi Foundation forum member Nu7s has created a web-page that will generate the command line command to make the camera do whatever you want it to. Try it out here
20×4 RGB LCD over i2c with a #RaspberryPi
Matt Dyson has used a 20×4 LCD display with an i2c backpack so that he only has to use 2 GPIO pins on his Raspberry Pi. Read more here
#RaspberryPi Doggie Treat Dispenser
Well-known techie Ben Heck continues to build a dog treat dispenser (with remote controls and webcam) with his Raspberry Pi.
#RaspberryPi camera lifts off onboard a quadcopter
JBAnovling has published a video of his Quadcopter. It has a Raspberry Pi at it’s core and the video shows a comparison of using the camera module and a keychain camera. Great stuff!
Tandy now selling Gertboard-compatible #RaspberryPi expansion board
Tandy are now selling their “Multiface” expansion board for the Raspberry Pi.
This board, which is compatible with Gertboard software released by Alex Eames of RasPi.TV, is a self-assembly kit – in other words, it requires soldering. It looks easier to put together than the Gertboard (no surface mounting required) and is laid out slightly better with clearer labelling.
The board includes the following functionality:
- 12x Buffered I/O with LED indicators
- 3x Push button switches
- 7x Open Collector darlington drivers
- Motor Controller
- 2-Channel digital to analogue convertor
- 2-Channel analogue to digital convertor
- ATMEGA 328 Microcontroller
Alex has done an excellent review of a pre-sales board over on RasPi.TV and I urge you to head over there to take a look.
The board sells from the Tandy Online shop for £27.99 delivered. You can find it on their shop here. This compares very favourably with the Gertboard which currently sells for just under the £40 mark on the Farnell website. That Gertboard price does, of course, include assembly, but if (like me) you actually quite enjoy a bit of soldering then the Tandy board is very attractive. I’ll be interested to hear from anyone who has got the Tandy board and played around with it.
NOOBS : the #RaspberryPi New Out Of Box System
We had a great time at the Cambridge Raspberry Jam on Saturday (full report coming soon). We had 4 visitors from the Foundation and it was great to meet them.
One of the Foundation people, Gordon Hollingworth (their Head of Software), announced NOOBS, which is the New-Out-Of-Box-System.
NOOBS is a new initiative (based on BerryBoot) to help users get started with their Raspberry Pi. It’s essentially another ‘image’ that can be written to an 4GB+ SD card (and I’m sure SD cards with pre-installed images will be available) which contains the ability to install operating systems on-the-fly.
We were treated to a preview of a pre-release version of the software, which Gordon hopes will be available from the Foundation site within the next week or so.
You put the card in your Pi, turn it on with a keyboard plugged in and hold down the Shift key. It quickly (very quickly) boots into an interface that lets you choose from a list of operating systems. The system then goes through the process of taking the chosen OS (which is stored on a separate partition on the SD card) and installing it on the main part of the SD card.
This has a few benefits:
- Very easy first-install of an operating system for new users.
- Easy recovery of a workable environment if you corrupt the main part of your SD card (with the caveat that it will wipe your existing data).
- Ability to try out operating systems to find the one you like.
- Fast initial boot-up into something friendly.
It will be possible to manually add new images of operating systems to the card (although the process might be a bit fiddly to start with).
Alex Eames, at RasPi.TV recorded the announcement. You can see the video here.
You can see a video of a Maker Faire hangout with Eben Upton below. Towards the end of the video, he discusses NOOBS.