Over at Makezine.com, Neil Davenport has used a Raspberry Pi, an Arduino and some other basic circuitry to build a speech interpreter that controls devices around the home. He uses the set-up with some off-the-shelf devices such as lights, and even a Roomba vacuum cleaner, and controls them by having the Pi interpret his voice commands using a piece of software called PocketSphinx. It’s a really great example of what you can do with a bit of hacking. Read how to do it yourself here.
The Pi Hut and Makersify, both run by Jamie Mann, are currently having a stock clearance flash sale. Most items at The Pi Hut are currently between 10% and 75% off and items at Makersify are 10% off. The sale ends at 9am on Monday, so you’ve got time to make purchasing decisions. There are some great deals on including The Pi Hut’s best-selling and great value kits (pictured below), which are currently £45.
These sales are always a good time to pick up some bargains and to expand, or start your Raspberry Pi collection. So head over there now and have a browse!
Alex Eames recently ran a successful Kickstarter for the RasPiO GPIO Ruler (pictured above). The ruler is a brilliant crib-sheet for people who want to use the GPIO pins of the Raspberry Pi but can never remember how to get started. When I did my mini-review of a pre-production sample, I gave it 10/10. It’s one of those things that ‘just works’.
Following the completion of the Kickstarter, which shipped three weeks early, Alex is now selling the rulers to the general public. You can read his launch announcement here and get hold of a ruler by visiting his website. They cost £5.50 each (including global shipping) and there are discounts available for multiple units.
Alex has done a nice little launch video which you can see below:
Happy Back to the Future Day! In honour of this momentous occasion, when we can expect Marty McFly to travel from the past and appear somewhere above Hill Valley, California, I’ve decided to re-post this excellent project from Carl Monk. In his extensive write-up, he explains how he built and coded the Delorean Time Circuit and Flux Capacitor from the movie. It’s great stuff, really in-depth and definitely worth a re-visit, whatever your time period. So head over to Carl’s blog to read more or watch the video of it in action below:
Grace Owolade-Coombes and her son Femi ran a Jam in South London last weekend. They had over 70 people at the event and they were treated to a wide array of workshops and other activities. Femi has now written up a review of the event from his point-of-view and you can read it on his blog. Good job, Femi, and well done to Grace who masterminded the event. Great to hear so many people from the Pi community leant a hand like David Whale and Jim Darby. Really terrific team effort!
Giles Booth previously started to construct a circuit and write code that would display a traffic lights sequence on LEDs connected to his Pi using GPIO Zero. This time, he has added a momentary tactile switch to the circuit so that he can wait for the button press before ‘stopping traffic’ to allow people to cross. It’s great to see someone build their circuit and programming up like this. Read about his continuing adventures here.
