The MagPi has published a tutorial that teaches you how to prototype your very own, simple Raspberry Pi HAT. They work with a breadboard to start with and go through the process of flashing the EEPROM. Read it here.
Steam powered engine drives a Raspberry Pi Zero
This is a ridiculous project, but that doesn’t make it any less cool.
“Alexzpro” has created a steam boiler (with water heated by two propane blow torches!) which drives a two-cylinder steam engine. The engine turns a motor which generates power. A regulator and some capacitors converts the power into a steady 5V supply and this is then fed into a Raspberry Pi Zero. You can read a bit more here on the Forum on which he was able to get a bit of help sorting out voltage issues. You can see a video of it in action below:
Mini Maker Day (for kids) in Cambridge – Wednesday, 6th April
Cambridge Eagle Lab is holding a Mini Maker Day on Wednesday, 6th April from 10am-1pm for young people who would like to explore making.
An opportunity to generate ideas, solve problems and make artistic and practical objects in our creative space with computer aided design and prototyping intersect. From Raspberry Pi to 3D printers, we will explore different areas of the maker world, where the children will be able to make their own personalised creation to take home.
Parents/guardians are required to attend with their child(ren). The Eagle Lab is above Barclays Bank on Cherry Hinton Road, Cambridge, CB1 7BN. There is parking on-site, behind the building.
Explore an AstroPi winning entry with the Raspberry Pi website
Hannah Belshaw from Cumnor House Girls School recently won the chance to have her AstroPi project run on the International Space Station. The project records data from the AstroPi’s SenseHAT and then visualises that data inside the world of Minecraft. Martin O’Hanlon, Minecraft Pi guru, has turned the project into a “learn” resource for the Raspberry Pi Foundation and it has now been published. Take a look at the resource here. Kudos to Hannah and Martin for getting the project into a resource which can be used by many more people to see how data can be turned into an exciting visualisation.
Raspberry Pi retro gaming table built from IKEA furniture
Over on the Element 14 community, Spencer (spannerspencer) has documented his build of a retro gaming table. The original table is one of those square Lack coffee tables from IKEA (the ones everybody has got, it seems) and he has added the main part of an old LCD monitor, some arcade controls and, of course, the Raspberry Pi. The controls are hooked up to an Arduino Leonardo and the player’s commands are fed into the Pi via USB. A piece of acrylic added to the top of the table finishes it off! Read and see more here. A very nice build well within the capabilities of anyone with a few tools.
CamJam EduKit 1 joins Raspberry Pi learning resources
Pardon me while I get a little excited! 🙂
Ben Nuttall ran a GPIO Zero workshop at the Raspberry Pi Big Birthday Weekend. In the workshop, he used components from CamJam EduKit 1 (a cheap electronics components kit) to teach the basics of the Python library and built up to programming a traffic lights/pedestrian crossing sequence. Now, he has published the workshop as a “learn” resource on the Raspberry Pi website. We (the EduKit team: Tim, Jamie & myself) think the world of GPIO Zero as it represents the easiest way for children (and adults!) to get into physical computing using Python on the Raspberry Pi. We’re intending to write new versions of our worksheets using the library in the near future and Ben’s new resource is even more reason to do so. For Jams and other events, the new resource is perfect – it lets your students do a lot without much, if any, prior knowledge of how the language works. Great work, Ben! Take a look at the new resource here.