The MagPi has published a guide to terminal commands that are especially relevant to Raspberry Pi owners.Conquer the Command Line, written by Bash expert Richard Smedley is available as a PDF download from the MagPi website.
Exterminate all long grass with a Raspberry Pi
Canadian Ron Ostafichuk took a lot of old pieces of wood and created a full-sized version of the most terrifying creature known to man: a Dalek! Powered by a 12 volt battery, he used a Raspberry Pi to control relay controllers and DC motor controllers to manage the wheel movement. His eventual aim is to turn the whole apparatus into a remote-controlled mower! Read more on his blog.
Gravity Pong – a Raspberry Pi controlled game with over 1700 LEDs
The guys at Norwegian Creations have created a game called Gravity Pong. It is a 4.5 metre high ball-bouncing game which uses 1792 individually controllable RGB LEDs and it is controlled by a Raspberry Pi 2. For more details, read their blog or watch the video below.
Gravity Pong – How it Was Made from Norwegian Creations on Vimeo.
Arduino on the Raspberry Pi – RasPiO Duino vs Gertduino
Hans Otten likes to use ATmega chips in conjunction with the Raspberry Pi. To do this, he has purchased two boards: the RasPiO Duino and the Gertduino. He has extensively reviewed the two products over on his blog and has also given instructions on how to get them working. He comes to the conclusion that the RasPiO board is the better one, because it is simpler, better designed and, crucially, better supported by the creator. The RasPiO Duino is available from Alex Eames’ website (as well as other vendors such as The Pi Hut) and the Gertduino is available from CPC or Farnell.
Photo credit: RasPiO Duino by Alex Eames
Raspberry Pi vendor Dawn Robotics closing down
Alan Broun, director of Dawn Robotics, has announced that the company is to shut its doors. You can read the full story over on the Dawn Robotics blog. I’d like to wish Alan well for his career as a computer programmer and that this will give him and his family the financial stability it needs.
Alan, and Dawn Robotics, have been a great supporter of CamJam and Pi Wars over the past few years and it is really sad to see him leave the Pi vendor community.
He is holding a closing down sale over on his website, so head over there to get some bargains.
New AstroPi website launched by Raspberry Pi Foundation
Apologies for the lack of posts this week. Between Pi Wars, EduKit 3, rehearsals for Parade and real-life work, I’ve been pretty slammed!
With Astronaut Tim Peake going up to the International Space Station next month to run experiments on two Raspberry Pis, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has launched a revamped AstroPi website. The website gives information about the original competition, the winning entries, how to get involved by using the SenseHAT and lots of information about Tim Peake and his mission. See the new site here.