Industry

Real-time, customised version of Raspberry Pi being used within industry

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Real-time Ethernet specialists Hilscher have invested in Element 14’s Raspberry Pi customisation service to produce what they are calling the netPi. The netPi uses the same Broadcom technology as the Raspberry Pi 3 but does so in a different form factor. The different interfaces, such as USB, are laid out differently and the netPi has additional functionality in the form of two real-time Ethernet sockets and also a new expansion socket in the mini-PCIe form factor. (Real-time Ethernet is used in industry to send fast sensor readings over an Ethernet cable in real-time). To go with the new hardware comes a new ‘hardened’ operating system which is based on the Yocto project. Running on top of that is Docker with a Raspbian instance to allow software developers to have a more familiar experience.

You can read more about the netPi over on the Element 14 blog.

Accessories, Art, Audio, Making, Programming, Software

Answer questions, record sound and print the wave with a Raspberry Pi

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Bomani, Eunice, and Matt have created a project called Waves which allows you to see the spoken word in printed form. A set of colour-coded questions is posed and you are then invited to answer them whilst pressing a colour-coded button. The appropriate question and your response are then printed out using a thermal printer – the question as text and your response as a sound wave (pictured above). You can read how they did it, and perhaps create your own, by viewing more about the project over at GitHub and see it in action below.

Audio, Making

Retro sound effects typewriter uses a Raspberry Pi

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James McCullen has taken inspiration from a 1930s Looney Tunes short film called Hold Anything and created a custom ‘typewriter’ that plays cartoon sound effects. He recorded the effects himself and then copied them to a Raspberry Pi which was then inserted into the casing. By pressing the various buttons and turning dials, he can change what sound effect comes out. See the Fleischer 100 in action below and read more at Raspberry Pi.

Accessories, Art, Big Data, Blinkies, Internet of things, Raspberry Pi Zero, Science

Create a weather forecasting lamp using a Raspberry Pi Zero

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“The Modern Inventor” has written a great Instructable which helps you to create your very own weather forecasting lamp called the Storm Glass. The lamp, which has been given the ability to simulate lightning, fog, rain and thunder using off-the-shelf parts is partly a glass tube and partly 3D-printed and houses a Raspberry Pi Zero. The Weather Underground API is used to read weather conditions from a location and then the weather is simulated inside the lamp. This really is pretty nifty, and quite beautiful. Take a look at the tutorial here.

Making

Creating a portable deck for commuting with a Raspberry Pi

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Kerry Scharfglass was finding typical portable computers difficult to work with in confined spaces, such as on a plane or on a train. So, he decided to build his own which he called the Commute Deck. The main chassis is made from plywood and he created his own, custom, keyboard for the purpose (which uses a Teensy to read the key matrix) which was split in half on either side of a screen. The Raspberry Pi is the heart of the machine. He’s ended up with something which is part-laptop and part-cyberpunk device, although I’m not sure how great it will be for the restricted width of a plane seat! Read more over at Make.

Camera module, Security, Sensors, Tutorials

Simple motion-detecting security camera uses a Raspberry Pi and camera module

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The folks over at Diligence Technologies have written an interesting Instructable that can be used for simple home security. A Pi is connected to a camera module and then a piece of software written in Python is used to detect motion and then send a notification to you, via the PushBullet web service platform. Take a look at the tutorial here and look at their code here. A video walk-through is shown below: