micro:bit, Personal

Changing the name of my blog – broadening out to a wider audience

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Hi everyone – hope you’re well in these weird, difficult times.

Over the past few months, I’ve come to the conclusion that many of the people who are interested in the Raspberry Pi are also interested in other single board computers, in particular the BBC micro:bit, a micro-controller that has become very popular in the UK. In order to allow myself to blog about both Pi and micro:bit news and projects, I’ve changed the branding on my blog to include the micro:bit.

My first love will always be the Raspberry Pi: I owe it and the Raspberry Pi Foundation so much in terms of my learning, my friendship group and my hobbies. However, there are times when I think that a micro:bit is the better answer, particularly when it comes to those first steps into computing. Please note: I am not saying that the Pi in any way has issues in terms of what it sets out to do, and the way it does it; just that sometimes a family or child just wants to plug something into their laptop and “get on with it” rather than burn an SD card and come to terms with the finer points of Linux/Raspbian.

I guess what I’m saying is: There is room for both, and there is a point to both.

That explains the change in name and header image, I hope! This blog is now called “Raspberry Pi Pod and micro:bit base”. I like a bit of alliteration! 🙂

I’m also planning on blogging a little more than in recent months. I’ve had to re-evaluate how I spend my time – there are plenty of projects I’d like to get on with, house stuff, family stuff, theatre stuff. It all takes time. But there is room for blogging, too, and I do enjoy it!

Until next time!

Books, Personal, Research, Robotics, Tutorials

Robotics presentation from Preston Raspberry Jam – script and slides

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Hi everyone.

I’ve just given a talk on getting into robotics at the Preston Raspberry Jam and I promised I would publish the notes and slides. They’re both PDFs and should, if I’ve done it right (!), include plenty of links to resources, videos etc. So, without further ado:

Feel free to use them as a basis for your own talk/robotics.

Camera module

Sample shots from the new Raspberry Pi camera – my ugly mug and a beauty shot

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Hi folks. Just thought I’d take a couple of shots with the new Raspberry Pi camera. These are with the 16mm lens that I prefer (the 6mm lens being a little bit more fiddly to focus!). The subject matter’s not stellar, but you can see the high quality of the pictures okay and they’re in focus as near as I can tell!

Click to get the huuuuuuge versions.

 

Books, Camera module, Shopping

New high quality camera from Raspberry Pi released today, along with a new camera guide

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A new camera module is released today with a 12.3-megapixel lens. The camera, which retails for $50 (yes, yes, dollars?! etc etc – it’s where the parts come from that determines the price, same as the Pi) comes with support for C and CS lenses and uses a Sony IMX477 sensor to produce crystal-clear images. Approved resellers will be selling compatible lenses: a 6 mm CS‑mount lens at $25, and a very shiny 16 mm C-mount lens priced at $50.

Buying the camera is easy enough – just use one of the Approved Resellers like Pimoroni or The Pi Hut then pick up a lens or two from them as well (The Pi Hut here and Pimoroni here).

I had a play with the camera a couple of months ago – it’s a really lovely piece of kit. It’s even got a tripod screw mount on the bottom to give you stability, which you’ll need to really take advantage of larger lenses.

Also out today is a new Camera Guide from Raspberry Pi Press which is available for £10 (or you can grab a PDF for free) covering both the new and existing camera modules and how to use them most effectively.

You can see a launch video for the camera itself below:

Cases, Reviews, Shopping

Argon ONE case for the Raspberry Pi 4 – a quick review

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Hi everybody. I bought this case the other day for my media centre Raspberry Pi running downstairs in the lounge. The previous case (one of those all-metal all-heatsink jobbies) looked a bit out-of-place, so I decided to go for the Argon ONE as I’d heard a lot about it. TL;DR – just buy it if you want a brilliant case for your Pi.

At £25, this is one of the more expensive cases you can buy, but I was very impressed. It comes well-wrapped in a cardboard box and consists of:

  • The main body of the case (metal) including a fan
  • The bottom plate (plastic)
  • A daughter board PCB
  • Heat transferrance pads
  • Screws to hole it together

All of the parts are very well-made/moulded – you can see and feel the reason why it is more expensive than other cases.

Assembly is simple. You plug the daughter board into the Pi’s HDMI and audio ports – this brings all the ports you associate with the Pi round to one side of the case. You apply the heat transferrance pads to the Raspberry Pi (thus allowing the whole of the top of the case, which is metal, to act as a heatsink).

The assembly (Pi plus board) then plugs into a GPIO header inside the main body of the case. You use the included screws to make sure it is firmly held in place (although, frankly, the Pi is tight enough that you don’t need to bother!) and then the bottom plate is screwed on using a different set of screws.

Once assembled, you can immediately see the special features of the case. All the ports are on the ‘back side’ as well as a power button. This button can be programmed to do different functions and you can download a script from the Argon site that will program it to safely shutdown the Pi.

Another feature that I haven’t mentioned in full is that there is a small 5V fan inside the case which will cool the Pi 4 down. There are plenty of vent holes in the case, so overheating should not be a problem. A script, which is downloadable, controls the fan speed depending on CPU temperature.

The final special feature is quite brilliant. You might think from the first picture that this is a ‘sealed unit’ useful only for media centres. You would be wrong. Full access to the GPIO pins is available by lifting off a metal plate which is magnetically held in place:

The ports are all labelled and, to add to the joy, the exposed GPIO pins are colour-coded to aid in pin-navigation! It really is a lovely feature which means that you can use it as a hacking platform as well as a “nice box to hold your media center Pi in”.

Conclusion

I thoroughly recommend this case if you can afford it. It is solid, well-made and has a host of features that are difficult to beat.

You can buy the case from The Pi Hut for £25 plus postage. (As of 23/4, it is sold out, but Jamie at the Hut says that they are getting hundreds in very soon!)