Francesco Vannini over at Garage Tech recently got hold of a PaPiRus Zero. It’s the latest add-on board for Pi Supply and, like the original PaPiRus, it is an e-ink display. Francesco has done a video walk-around of the new board and the two different screen sizes available. Take a look here.
Leigh Hackspace in the North West of England (yes, I had to look it up!) is running its first ever Raspberry Jam this Saturday. There are workshops being run, aimed specifically at the beginner, and demos and discussions for those more advanced people. The Jam runs from 2-7pm and will involve pizza. Tickets cost £3 (to cover the pizza) and they are also allowing people to pre-order Raspberry Pi kits to take away at the end of the Jam. It’s an interesting new Jam model, and I’ll be really interested to hear stories from the event! Get your tickets here.
Liz Upton has posted a new entry on the Raspberry Pi blog. This time, she’s featured an interview with Eben, conducted by The Centre for Computing History (with help from the Heritage Lottery fund). The interview is all about the history of the Pi, how it got started and how things have evolved. Fascinating stuff and well worth a look:
On 2nd July, Eben is giving a one hour computing lesson at the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge using the BBC Micro, the machine on which he himself learned how to program! The event runs from 11am-12pm and is open to anyone aged 11 and above. Take a look here to find out how to book your ticket.
Robin Newman, who does some wonderful stuff with Sonic Pi amongst other things, recently received his RasPiO ProHAT experimenter’s kit and set himself a project. The project involved taking the components from the kit and adding a couple of capacitors and creating an LED bar graph. He takes the analog stereo output from the Pi (generated by Sonic Pi), runs it through the MCP3008 chip supplied with the experimenter’s kit and then outputs sound levels on the LEDs. Great work, Robin. Read more on his blog, see a video below and look at the code here.
Mike Moyer was tired of seeing Samsung commercials for the Family Hub refrigerator with the built-in camera and decided to make his own using a Raspberry Pi, a webcam and a light sensor. Every time the fridge is opened, the Pi takes a picture of the contents. He used a buck converter to take the fridge’s power supply down to 5V for the Pi and also created a website where the last picture taken was published. You can see the current picture on the website here. Mike’s done an explanation video which you can see below and you can visit YouTube for a bill-of-materials (check the video description). The Python program he wrote is available here.
Here’s a massive project for you. Normally, pool automation systems cost somewhere in the region of $10k. So, an Instructables user decided to create his own using a Raspberry Pi. He hooked up all the inputs for the main swimming pool and the adjacent spa pool to relays and then had the Pi control them. He then built a web interface for it to enable him to control and set-up the two pools via his smartphone. 60 hours and a comparatively minor $1000 later, he had a fully working system. You can follow an overview of the project on Instructables and see a video of the main pool control below:
