3D printing, Blinkies, GPIO boards, Making, Programming

Building a Twitter-enabled Raspberry Pi-powered snow globe

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Every year, Spencer Organ tries to make something Christmassy to make his house more festive, and to show off at various events he attends. This year, he 3D-printed a plastic house and placed it inside a snow globe bell jar. Beneath the house, he added a Raspberry Pi Zero W with a Pimoroni Automation pHAT and Unicorn pHAT. He soldered everything up and then did some programming to connect the project to Twitter, allowing him to specify keywords to achieve different effects inside the house. You can read more from Spencer here, including how to build your own.

AIY, Magazines, Raspberry Pi Foundation

New MagPi issue celebrates beginning electronics, text adventures and a new Google AIY product

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The new issue of The MagPi (number 64) seeks to be an electronics starter guide with explanation of the normal components and some simple projects to get you going. They even recommend the CamJam EduKits as a great way to get hold of the components, which is lovely, thanks folks! Also in the issue is a long tutorial on creating text adventures and a feature on the new Google AIY Projects: Vision kit which you can also read here.

Oddly, the AIY kit is currently only pre-orderable from MicroCenter, which is very strange as I thought this was a UK-published magazine, but what do I know? Oh, wait, apparently there will be worldwide availability from Spring 2018. That’s all right then.

You can read the new MagPi for free here or order a print copy/pick it up in newsagents.

Education, Programming, Raspberry Pi Foundation

New Christmas-themed resources from the Raspberry Pi Foundation

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Scary carol singers

Raspberry Pi’s Laura Sach has just announced that there are some new Christmas-themed resources available to get you into the festive spirit. I know, I know, it’s still November, but anyway!

The first project is in Scratch and shows you how to build a memory game using Christmas jumpers. Take a look at that one here.

The second uses a SenseHAT to create an advent calendar with lights you can ‘open’ each day using the Pi’s clock to control access. Take a look here. (Obviously, this will only be worthwhile from Friday onwards!)

The next project teaches you how to use Sonic Pi through coding the Twelve Days of Christmas carol. For this project, visit this page.

The last project is a bit more involved on the coding front and uses Python to help you to analyse a Twitter account for tweets made in the last year. By training a ‘classifier’, you can work out if the person who owns the account has been naughty or nice! Take a look here.

For their article on the resources, go to Raspberry Pi.

Making, Programming, Sensors, Shopping

Detecting a rain shower with your Raspberry Pi

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Alex Eames, over at RasPi.TV has been experimenting with a rain sensor. He’s figured out how to use the digital-out of a breakout board to trigger a buzzing alert when water is detected. By tuning the breakout with a potentiometer, it can be configured to detect the first few drops of rain and let you know. That means that your worries about not bringing the washing in when it rains are gone! You can read a tutorial and see the code here and you can get hold of a small kit to do the project yourself here.

Shopping

Black Friday – bargains in the Raspberry Pi world – Fill yer boots!

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This is the 2017 post. For 2018’s post, go here.

Without much ado at all, here’s a list of the companies in the Raspberry Pi world and what they’re doing for Black Friday. I’ll update this post as I hear about more deals.

  • RasPiO
    • 30% off everything with a minimum order value of £10. Use code BLACKFRIDAY at the checkout.
  • The Pi Hut
    • 20% off Pimoroni, Adafruit & DFRobot products.
    • FREE official Raspberry Pi case with the purchase of a Raspberry Pi 3.
  • pi-top
  • Pi Supply
    • 15% site-wide discount.
    • Free mystery gift on orders over £45.
  • Pimoroni
    • Some items discounted, up to 40% off
    • Free Pico HAT Hacker for all orders over £15
    • They are also running their famous #yarrbooty as a hashtag on Twitter – £2,000 of voucher giveaways! – from 12pm-6pm, Friday to Monday.
  • PiBorg
    • 10% off everything!
  • ModMyPi
    • 10% off everything and up to 20% off set-up & project kits
    • Spend £50 and get a free Pi Zero (while stocks last)
    • Spend £100 get a free Pi Zero W (while stocks last)
    • The 35% discount on pi-top version 1s is still live
  • IQaudIO
    • 15% off audio boards (highly recommended by audiophile Tim!) with voucher code BF2017.
    • Free shipping on all orders over £100.
  • UUGear
    • 20% off everything this week with coupon code blackfriday_2017).
    • For resellers, an extra 5% discount with coupon code blackfriday_2017_reseller.
  • HiFi Berry
    • 20% selected audio boards and cases with code HiFiBerry-black
  • YoDeck
    • 25% off Raspberry Pi starter kits and free shipping (US/Canada only)

If you know of any Pi-related deals I’m missing, send me an email!

GPIO boards, Reviews

Witty Pi 2 – power management board for the Raspberry Pi – an Average Man review

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Richard Saville (Average Man) has been busy for the past 13 months, what with his new house and new baby. Well, he’s back with a review of the UUGear Witty Pi 2. This power management board has:

  • an on-off switch for the Raspberry Pi
  • power scheduling for turning the Pi on and off at specific times
  • a real-time clock for keeping the scheduler, and the Pi, to time

You can read the (sparkling) review here. You can buy the Witty Pi 2 directly from UUGear (around £17 or $23).

Welcome back, Mr Average!

Oh, by-the-by, you can read my review of the original Witty Pi here. It seems, from Richard’s review, that the Witty Pi 2 has addressed the only concern I had – that of the need for a proper GUI to set-up the scheduler.