Just thought I’d spread the good news. The Pi Hut has just announced a Bank Holiday Weekend sale. You can get 10% off everything this weekend. Brilliant deals to be had on:
And, of course, lots more. Head over to The Pi Hut now to take a look.
This blew me away when I read it.
Seattle-based Dana Lewis suffers from Type 1 Diabetes, and has done since she was 14. One of the issues facing diabetics is that during the night, despite having all kinds of different monitoring equipment, it is all too easy for the sufferer to not be woken by the alarm, leading to them feeling unwell in the morning, or possibly even dying during the middle of the night. To solve this, Lewis and her then-fiance (now husband) Scott Leibrand concocted a monitoring system that would keep an eye on her glucose levels and then recommend an insulin dose to the injection device she wears. After prototyping the device, which they dubbed the DIY Pancreas, and requiring Lewis to press a button to administer the dose, they realised that they had an algorithm they could use that could learn from her habits and get the dose right 100% of the time. They used a Raspberry Pi to receive data from the monitor, control the algorithm and then issue commands to the insulin pump automatically, thus enabling Lewis to sleep soundly.
They are now supporting other diabetics who are seeking to ‘close the loop’ on their treatment.
Read more on this amazing project at Business Insider and take a look at their blog for the full story.
Hi everyone. Just wanted to share news of a couple of upcoming events in Cambridge. You probably already know about them, but just in case!
First up, we have our traditional CamJam on the 12th of September at the Institute of Astronomy. We’ve got a great line-up of talks which should be fun, educational and informative. The timetable of talks is available here. We also have a soldering workshop going on throughout the day – Pimoroni are running that. Our Marketplace will be bustling with the following vendors: The Pi Hut, 4tronix and Pimoroni. And, of course, we have Show and Tell going on all day with various projects from art to robotics. You can book tickets here.
Our challenge-based robotics competition will take place on 5th December at the Cambridge Computer Laboratory. 32 teams will compete for prizes over 7 different main challenges, with lots of other side-challenges happening at the same time. We will have a robotics Show and Tell all day and there will be an extensive Marketplace area with all your favourite vendors. You can find out more about the competition from our website here. You can buy spectator tickets for the day here.
Myself and co-organiser Tim Richardson really hope a lot of you can make it to these events!
Dave Hunt’s bathroom didn’t have extractor fans fitted when the house was originally built. He decided to overkill the problem by having a Raspberry Pi control some new fans he fitted. He uses AM2302 humidity sensors to detect the moisture levels in the air. The readings get fed back to a Raspberry Pi in his attic which then controls the extractor fans via relays. In the picture above you can see the perspex plate the electronics are fixed to for mounting above the bathroom ceiling. Read more here.
Love Hulten is a Swedish designer and craftsman who loves to fuse together technology and more traditional materials. He’s just unveiled his latest two creations. The first is called the PE358 and is inspired by the Game Boy Advance.
It features all the expected buttons and cross-pad from the Nintendo machine and is based on a Raspberry Pi A+. It has a walnut case and folds down into an innocuous wooden block.
The second device is called the Battlecade and is a two-player version with proper joysticks and back-to-back 12″ LCD screens. It includes a compartment for the joysticks and power adapter and, again, folds up into a wooden block when not in use.
Really lovely old-fashioned craftsmanship and some great tech know-how.
Exploring Mars is likely to be the most exciting scientific project of this century. Whenever it happens, it will capture the imagination of adults and children alike. There are just a few hurdles to overcome first! Like getting there… One of the issues explorers will face is the need for natural resources on the red planet, particularly water. Curiosity and the Phoenix Mars Lander indicated that there was water on Mars, frozen into the soil. The current thinking is that instead of transporting vast amounts of water to the planet (infeasible due to space and weight), a device will be used to retrieve the water that is already there.
The Mars Aqua Retrieval System (MARS) is a proof-of-concept for a water-extraction robot developed by the Singapore University of Technology and Design, and Australia’s Gilmour Space Technologies. The Raspberry Pi- and Arduino-powered robot has been designed to travel to a set of co-ordinates, microwave the soil and then collect the water vapour, condensing it back to liquid form. Its current rate of conversion is 4 grams per 4 minutes, so it’s unlikely to go to Mars in its present form, but as a proof-of-concept it works. It was built for a budget of $10,000 and is designed to work in the Martian atmosphere.
