They sent me a beta of their board to try out and, I have to say, it works marvellously. The instructions for use are very straight-forward. (I won’t detail them here as it may work differently when the finished product is finally ready and available). After a reboot, wifi networks were findable via the Pi desktop in the same way as a dongle.
I compared the wifi speed to that of the official Raspberry Pi Foundation dongle and found them to have almost identical performance. Browsing, likewise, was very similar (obviously) and I didn’t experience any drop-outs. Bluetooth was also easy to set-up and install (though had slightly more steps, but I’m sure they’ll fix this) and I was able to pair devices very easily. As I said before, this is a beta board (v0.3) but it works very well. I’ve been assured that the final device will be very similar to what I received, so I’m confident in saying that the product is of a high quality.
If you need these wireless capabilities for your Raspberry Pi and you don’t want to (or can’t) use a wifi/Bluetooth dongle, this is a great solution, especially for the low-footprint Raspberry Pi Zero.
You can see from their campaign page that it is very light power-wise running at just 230mA on a Zero.
Technical
From a technical standpoint, it uses the same Broadcom wifi/Bluetooth chip that is on the Raspberry Pi 3 so it shouldn’t be a surprise that it works well.
Pricing
The board sells for $9 plus shipping (a very reasonable $5) and there are various add-ons to choose from such as an external antenna that you can plug in to the board to extend the range and a Bluetooth gaming controller. Overall, a very well thought-out campaign and firmly in the ‘affordable’ category. Good luck with the campaign, guys!
I recently installed and tried out “Cayenne“, which is an Internet of Things platform for the Raspberry Pi. You hook sensors up to your Pi, create the relevant boxes on Cayenne and then you can see readings over the Internet. Not only that, you can also remote-desktop to your Pi and control the GPIO pins via their excellent web or mobile app. Overall, it was a very positive experience and I was able to use all the functions available with little to no bother. Thoroughly recommended if you want to do this kind of thing with a very nice interface. Take a look.
Gus, over at Pi My Life Up, has written an extensive tutorial on installing and using it and gives his reaction to the service. I highly recommend reading through it.
Jamie Bailey from Initial State (a brilliant IoT API website) has been in touch again. This time, he’s published a really fun tutorial in which you create a set of scales from a Wii Balance Board and hook it up to a Raspberry Pi 3 (or other Pi with a Bluetooth dongle). You then use the Initial State website to graph the results and get it to send you an SMS each time you take a reading. Take a look here.
This time on The Pi Podcast, the guys cover the latest news, including an intriguing (and successful) attempt to get Minecraft-alike game Minetest running on the Pi. Should be interesting to see if we can get Python integration on that as well as Minecraft seeing as development on the Minecraft Pi Edition platform seems to have stalled.
Interviewed on this episode is John Cole, founder and CEO of USA-based Dexter Industries.
On a fresh (read: a bit chilly) Saturday morning, I drove up the A1 to Peterborough to attend the Peterborough Raspberry Jam, organised by Hannah Mills & Mike Mills (no relation!). It had been a while since I attended a Jam that I hadn’t organised, so I was really looking forward to it. I was not disappointed!
TL;DR: I had a great time, there were lots of people there and plenty of fascinating projects and products as well as great talks and workshops.
Once I’d eventually found the right building (my sense of direction got it wrong!) I was warmly greeted by Hannah who let me have a timetable and some extra times to cover various duties and a Jam Maker badge. I proudly wore it all day! So nice to be helping out at someone else’s event!
To start with, I browsed around the foyer which was host to their Show and Tell exhibits and Marketplace. While not as large as the facilities at CamJam’s Institute of Astronomy, this was a great space filled with Pi-related stuff and helped to generate a real buzz.
First up was Steve Upton and his awesome LED display screen. This has lots of bright LEDs in strips which make up a pixelated screen onto which various messages and games can be displayed. Here’s Steve (left) and Hannah (right) as she plays Space Invaders!
Hannah playing Steve Upton’s Space Invaders
Next was Pi Top. Jesse was introducing a child to the wonders of the Pi Top’s operating system and multi-player online game designed to educate children in algorithms and coding with exploratory play.
Pi Top
Next along was Ragworm. It was great to see Connor and Stacey again and their selection of circuit boards.
The FUZE team was here with their rugged all-in-one keyboard/Pi solutions. They’ve got some exciting things coming up soon (which I can’t tell you about) so keep an eye on the blog for more about that in the next couple of weeks.
Fuze
David Saul was next in line. He was displaying some of his great display add-on boards for the Pi but what really caught my eye was the multi-language word clocks controlled by the Raspberry Pi Zero.
David Saul’s word clocks
The major vendor at the Jam was Rapid Electronics (The Pi Hut were unable to attend due to a family emergency). I was impressed by their selection of products and their friendly manner. I particularly liked the bargain bins down the bottom full of hackable goodies. I picked up a make-it-yourself mobile phone kit that I’d wanted for ages.
Rapid Electronics Marketplace stand
Robin Newman, who attends lots of Jams and always has something new to show, was next. He had a Pimoroni Flotilla robot to try out. I’m still not sure about all the cables, but it was great to see it ‘in action’.
Robin Newman’s Flotilla robot
He also had his Sonic Pi demonstration equipment (although I didn’t get a chance to find out what it was all about – he was very busy!)
Robin Newman’s show and tell
Next around the room was Digital People in Peterborough, an organisation that tries to bring technological people in the city and surrounding towns together. As part of their display, Stuart Elmore was displaying his voice-activated, talking mirror project. This used the Google Voice API to analyse vocal commands and provide responses. At the moment, it’s a few phrases but Stuart hopes to expand it to have some kind of artificial intelligence.
Stuart Elmore’s voice activated talking mirror
Just inside the entrance, there were two large Show and Tell exhibits. The first, which I didn’t get a photo of (doh!) was a set of real full-size, traffic lights using salvaged parts which would otherwise have been headed for land-fill. A Pi detected the pedestrian button-press and then activated the traffic lights sequence. Great stuff!
I’ve left the most fun exhibit until last. Taking inspiration from Pi Wars 2015, maker Brian Corteil has created “Micro Pi Noon”. In it, teams use mini robots to fight each other and burst a balloon attached to their competitor. You can see Brian explain the rules and a (very) quick duel between two house robots in the video below:
Here’s Brian with his creation:
Micro Pi Noon with creator Brian Corteil
And here’s the Hitchin Hackspace boys with their custom competitor robot:
It was also great to catch up with lots of people:
Hilary, Steve and his daughter
In the afternoon, I gave a presentation on HATs and Add-On Boards. Following Brian’s talk on robotics, I bravely switched my laptop on… and was promptly faced with a Blue Screen of Death. Darn you, Windows! So, I switched to my backup plan – a printed copy of my presentation placed on the ‘visualiser’!
Thanks to a couple of people in the audience who took and tweeted these snaps!
After that, it was straight into the workshop room to prepare for the session I was running using the first CamJam EduKit. I had 15-18 people in the room wiring up circuits and programming their Pis using RPi.GPIO from Tim Richardson’s EduKit worksheets. This was the first workshop I had ever run and (despite me being nervous) it seemed to go pretty well. I certainly learnt a lot about what works and what doesn’t. Next time, we’ll use different material specifically designed for a 45-minute burst of activity. Less reading, more doing, is how the lessons can be summed up!
The CamJam EduKit workshop
I had about an hour after the workshop so I helped to tidy and pack everything away. Big thanks to Mike Mills for loaning the Pi workstations to the Jam – it’s really great kit!
After that, it was into the centre of Peterborough to the Argo Lounge for a bite to eat with some of the exhibitors, speakers and organisers. Very nice it was too – my first try of tapas!
I had a really great time – big thanks to Hannah and Mike for making it seem so effortless and creating a relaxed, fun atmosphere. Hopefully it won’t be too long before they do the next one!
The MagPi has just published a fun little tutorial which gives you the code for “The Bedrock Challenge”. In Minecraft Pi Edition, the Python code generates a random, invisible arena with holes in the floor that you must avoid to prevent yourself from plummeting to your death. The only help you have is an LED that lights up when any of the blocks surrounding you are empty air. The code and wiring diagram for the LED is available here.
