Sony Arouje and his wife grow plants and crops using aeroponics. They use a Raspberry Pi to automatically control the system’s various pumps and mechanisms and also to read button presses to trigger the system manually. Read more about the system and see more pictures here.
Francesco Vannini has written a tutorial, based on work by Andrew Mulholland, to allow you to use a Raspberry Pi Zero as a mass storage device which can be read as a source by a digital picture frame. Read it here. It’s an interesting method and use for the USB capabilities of the Zero and Francesco also covers his mistakes and wrong turns along the way.
Pete Stevens from Mythic Beasts has described on the Raspberry Pi blog how a Raspberry Pi 2 and a Raspberry Pi 3 were pressed into action on the Pi 3 launch day to handle some of the traffic. It makes for interesting reading and is another example of the flexibility of the Pi. Read it here.
Claire Garside is organising the very first Hull Raspberry Jam to take place on 23rd April. The event, which runs from 10.15am-1.15pm (very specific!) promises a range of activities including hands-on digital making workshops and a hackspace area to share projects and give lightning talks. She is looking for people to help by bringing projects and volunteering as Raspberry Pioneers to help with workshops or to share knowledge. The event will be hosted by Malet Lambert School (HU8 0JD). Get your free tickets here and help to make this a great event! You can follow Claire on the Jam Twitter acccount.
There are a couple of pre-built solutions for powering the Raspberry Pi on a portable basis. Some are actually ‘out there’, some are… a bit delayed, we’ll say. Instructables user DylanD581 has written a great tutorial which uses an Adafruit HAT prototyping board and a bunch of other components to create a portable power source which uses a LiPo battery. It gives you the following possibilities in terms of powering your Pi:
It’s really quite versatile and well worth the time it takes to solder it up. Take a look at the tutorial here.
Liz Upton, Director of Communications at Raspberry Pi, gets the Pi Podcast treatment this time. Liz is one of my favourite people – she’s always friendly, always straightforward and fights her corner with the best of them. She’s steadfastly guided comms at the Foundation and Trading since they were founded and should get far more kudos than she does. So, hear what she has to say by heading over to The Pi Podcast.
