Arduino, Making, Programming, Retro, Science

Decryption machine reproduction with a Raspberry Pi (Turing-Welchman)

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bome

The Turing-Welchman Bombe was a decryption machine used in World War II to decipher Enigma-encoded German messages. There is a real one running at Bletchley Park:

New Zealander Simon Jensen visited Bletchley and decided that he wanted to build a replica of the machine, but in desktop form and using a Raspberry Pi.

He initially wrote the software on a home-made 6502 computer in BASIC and then ported the general algorithm to C++ on the Pi. He uses an Arduino to control three stepper motors which animate the dials on the front.

You can see a video of the working machine below and read a lot more about it on his blog, including a full account of the build.

Simon also built a wrist-mounted Enigma decoding machine using a tiny Arduino and OLED screen which is just lovely. You can read about that here.

Camera module, Compute Module, Science, Video

Big wide eyes with a Raspberry Pi compute module

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polyeyes

The Interactive Architecture Lab is based in University College London and they have been working on producing a prosthetic suit called the Polymelia. It’s all about improving the human body through a series of prostheses… I think… it’s all a bit science-y and arty if you read their description here. Part of the Polymelia is the PolyEyes which is a massive great headset housing a Raspberry Pi Compute Module and uses two camera modules on motorised gimbals. The video output looks something like this:

You can read lots more on their website or view the video below to see a ‘making of’:

Events, Maker Faire

Fun at Maker Faire Berlin for one Raspberry Pi enthusiast

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James Mitchell, who runs the Berlin Raspberry Jam, represented all things Raspberry Pi at the recent Maker Faire Berlin. He had put together a stall full of Raspberry Pi-related projects:

  • Motorised spinning flower
  • Jedi or Sith detector
  • Conway’s Game of Life demo
  • Sense HAT demo
  • Internet Connected Goal: with camera, thermal printer and Twitter
  • Tweeting Photobooth
  • Robots: Line-following and Wiimote-controlled
  • Workstations with Minecraft, Scratch and Sonic Pi
  • Timelapse Cameras
  • Cheer Light Demo

He spoke to loads of people and even won an award for his efforts. You can read about his exploits on the Foundation’s blog here.

Making, Photography, Tutorials

Raspberry Pi photo booth using a thermal printer

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Frederick Vandenbosch decided he wanted to make a photo booth. So, he took a thermal printer and connected it up to a Raspberry Pi. Then he added the 7″ Raspberry Pi touch screen as a control interface and built a wooden surround for everything. It’s a very neat set-up and he’s written it all up as a tutorial with included code. The prints of the photographs are, of course, black and white and low-res, but it’s a great thing to do if you have the equipment. You can achieve the same result using the Pipsta printer. Take a look at Frederick’s blog post here.

Internet of things, Programming, Tutorials

When’s the next bus? with a Raspberry Pi

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Ismail Uddin has published a nice little tutorial on Science Exposure. In it, he uses a 16×2 HD44780 LCD screen and some Python to produce a next-bus tracking system. He’s uploaded the Python script to GitHub for easy download. Nice little project requiring quite a lot of wiring! Read it here. All you need to know is your bus stop number and you’re away.