In this article from The MagPi issue 69, David Crookes explains how Daniel Berrangé took an old Kodak Brownie from the 1950s and turned it into a quirky digital camera. Get your copy of The MagPi magazine in stores now, or download it as a free PDF here.
The Kodak Box Brownie
When Kodak unveiled its Box Brownie in 1900, it did so with the slogan ‘You press the button, we do the rest.’ The words referred to the ease-of-use of what was the world’s first mass-produced camera. But it could equally apply to Daniel Berrangé’s philosophy when modifying it for the 21st century. “I wanted to use the Box Brownie’s shutter button to trigger image capture, and make it simple to use,” he tells us.
Daniel’s project grew from a previous effort in which he placed a pinhole webcam inside a ladies’ powder compact case. “The Box Brownie project is essentially a repeat of that design but with a normal lens instead of a pinhole, a real camera case, and improved software to enable a shutter button. Ideally, it would look unchanged from when it was shooting film.”
Webcam woes
At first, Daniel looked for a cheap webcam, intending to spend no more than the price of a Pi Zero. This didn’t work out too well. “The low-light performance of the webcam was not sufficient to make a pinhole camera so I just decided to make a ‘normal’ digital camera instead,” he reveals. To that end, he began removing some internal components from the Box Brownie. “With the original lens removed, the task was to position the webcam’s electronic light sensor (the CCD) and lens as close to the front of the camera as possible,” Daniel explains. “In the end, the CCD was about 15 mm away from the front aperture of the camera, giving a field of view that was approximately the same as the unmodified camera would achieve.”
It was then time for him to insert the Raspberry Pi, upon which was a custom ‘init’ binary that loads a couple of kernel modules to run the webcam, mount the microSD file system, and launch the application binary. Here, Daniel found he was in luck. “I’d noticed that the size of a 620 film spool (63 mm) was effectively the same as the width of a Raspberry Pi Zero (65 mm), so it could be held in place between the film spool grips,” he recalls. “It was almost as if it was designed with this in mind.”
Shutter success
In order to operate the camera, Daniel had to work on the shutter button. “The Box Brownie’s shutter button is entirely mechanical, driven by a handful of levers and springs,” Daniel explains. “First, the Pi Zero needs to know when the shutter button is pressed and second, the physical shutter has to be open while the webcam is capturing the image. Rather than try to synchronise image capture with the fraction of a second that the physical shutter is open, a bit of electrical tape was used on the shutter mechanism to keep it permanently open.”
Daniel made use of the Pi Zero’s GPIO pins to detect the pressing of the shutter button. It determines if each pin is at 0 or 5 volts. “My thought was that I could set a GPIO pin high to 5 V, and then use the action of the shutter button to short it to ground, and detect this change in level from software.”
This initially involved using a pair of bare wires and some conductive paint, although the paint was later replaced by a piece of tinfoil. But with the button pressed, the GPIO pin level goes to zero and the device constantly captures still images until the button is released. All that’s left to do is smile and take the perfect snap.
After the outstanding success of their AIY Projects Voice and Vision Kits, Google has announced the release of upgraded kits, complete with Raspberry Pi Zero WH, Camera Module, and preloaded SD card.
Google’s AIY Projects Kits
Google launched the AIY Projects Voice Kit last year, first as a cover gift with The MagPi magazine and later as a standalone product.
Makers needed to provide their own Raspberry Pi for the original kit. The new kits include everything you need, from Pi to SD card.
Within a DIY cardboard box, makers were able to assemble their own voice-activated AI assistant akin to the Amazon Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google’s own Google Home Assistant. The Voice Kit was an instant hit that spurred no end of maker videos and tutorials, including our own free tutorial for controlling a robot using voice commands.
Later in the year, the team followed up the success of the Voice Kit with the AIY Projects Vision Kit — the same cardboard box hosting a camera perfect for some pretty nifty image recognition projects.
For more on the AIY Voice Kit, here’s our release video hosted by the rather delightful Rob Zwetsloot.
Check out the exclusive Google AIY Projects Kit that comes free with The MagPi 57! Grab yourself a copy in stores or online now: http://magpi.cc/2pI6IiQ This first AIY Projects kit taps into the Google Assistant SDK and Cloud Speech API using the AIY Projects Voice HAT (Hardware Accessory on Top) board, stereo microphone, and speaker (included free with the magazine).
AIY Projects 2
So what’s new with version 2 of the AIY Projects Voice Kit? The kit now includes the recently released Raspberry Pi Zero WH, our Zero W with added pre-soldered header pins for instant digital making accessibility. Purchasers of the kits will also get a micro SD card with preloaded OS to help them get started without having to set the card up themselves.
Everything you need to build your own Raspberry Pi-powered Google voice assistant
“Everything you need to get started is right there in the box,” explains Billy Rutledge, Google’s Director of AIY Projects. “We knew from our research that even though makers are interested in AI, many felt that adding it to their projects was too difficult or required expensive hardware.”
Google is also hard at work producing AIY Projects companion apps for Android, iOS, and Chrome. The Android app is available now to coincide with the launch of the upgraded kits, with the other two due for release soon. The app supports wireless setup of the AIY Kit, though avid coders will still be able to hack theirs to better suit their projects.
Google has also updated the AIY Projects website with an AIY Models section highlighting a range of neural network projects for the kits.
Get your kit
The updated Voice and Vision Kits were announced last night, and in the US they are available now from Target. UK-based makers should be able to get their hands on them this summer — keep an eye on our social channels for updates and links.
Note: the Pi Towers team have peeled away from their desks to spend time with their families over the festive season, and this blog will be quiet for a while as a result. We’ll be back in the New Year with a bushel of amazing projects, awesome resources, and much merriment and fun times. Happy holidays to all!
Now back to the matter at hand. Your brand new Christmas Raspberry Pi.
Your new Raspberry Pi
Did you wake up this morning to find a new Raspberry Pi under the tree? Congratulations, and welcome to the Raspberry Pi community! You’re one of us now, and we’re happy to have you on board.
But what if you’ve never seen a Raspberry Pi before? What are you supposed to do with it? What’s all the fuss about, and why does your new computer look so naked?
Setting up your Raspberry Pi
Are you comfy? Good. Then let us begin.
Download our free operating system
First of all, you need to make sure you have an operating system on your micro SD card: we suggest Raspbian, the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s official supported operating system. If your Pi is part of a starter kit, you might find that it comes with a micro SD card that already has Raspbian preinstalled. If not, you can download Raspbian for free from our website.
An easy way to get Raspbian onto your SD card is to use a free tool called Etcher. Watch The MagPi’s Lucy Hattersley show you what you need to do. You can also use NOOBS to install Raspbian on your SD card, and our Getting Started guide explains how to do that.
Plug it in and turn it on
Your new Raspberry Pi 3 comes with four USB ports and an HDMI port. These allow you to plug in a keyboard, a mouse, and a television or monitor. If you have a Raspberry Pi Zero, you may need adapters to connect your devices to its micro USB and micro HDMI ports. Both the Raspberry Pi 3 and the Raspberry Pi Zero W have onboard wireless LAN, so you can connect to your home network, and you can also plug an Ethernet cable into the Pi 3.
Make sure to plug the power cable in last. There’s no ‘on’ switch, so your Pi will turn on as soon as you connect the power. Raspberry Pi uses a micro USB power supply, so you can use a phone charger if you didn’t receive one as part of a kit.
Learn with our free projects
If you’ve never used a Raspberry Pi before, or you’re new to the world of coding, the best place to start is our projects site. It’s packed with free projects that will guide you through the basics of coding and digital making. You can create projects right on your screen using Scratch and Python, connect a speaker to make music with Sonic Pi, and upgrade your skills to physical making using items from around your house.
Here’s James to show you how to build a whoopee cushion using a Raspberry Pi, paper plates, tin foil and a sponge:
Explore the world of Raspberry Pi physical computing with our free FutureLearn courses: http://rpf.io/futurelearn Free make your own Whoopi Cushion resource: http://rpf.io/whoopi For more information on Raspberry Pi and the charitable work of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, including Code Club and CoderDojo, visit http://rpf.io Our resources are free to use in schools, clubs, at home and at events.
Diving deeper
You’ve plundered our projects, you’ve successfully rigged every chair in the house to make rude noises, and now you want to dive deeper into digital making. Good! While you’re digesting your Christmas dinner, take a moment to skim through the Raspberry Pi blog for inspiration. You’ll find projects from across our worldwide community, with everything from home automation projects and retrofit upgrades, to robots, gaming systems, and cameras.
You’ll also find bucketloads of ideas in The MagPi magazine, the official monthly Raspberry Pi publication, available in both print and digital format. You can download every issue for free. If you subscribe, you’ll get a Raspberry Pi Zero W to add to your new collection. HackSpace magazine is another fantastic place to turn for Raspberry Pi projects, along with other maker projects and tutorials.
And, of course, simply typing “Raspberry Pi projects” into your preferred search engine will find thousands of ideas. Sites like Hackster, Hackaday, Instructables, Pimoroni, and Adafruit all have plenty of fab Raspberry Pi tutorials that they’ve devised themselves and that community members like you have created.
And finally
If you make something marvellous with your new Raspberry Pi – and we know you will – don’t forget to share it with us! Our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Google+ accounts are brimming with chatter, projects, and events. And our forums are a great place to visit if you have questions about your Raspberry Pi or if you need some help.
It’s good to get together with like-minded folks, so check out the growing Raspberry Jam movement. Raspberry Jams are community-run events where makers and enthusiasts can meet other makers, show off their projects, and join in with workshops and discussions. Find your nearest Jam here.
As more and more digital home assistants are appearing on the consumer market, it’s not uncommon to see the towering Amazon Echo or sleek Google Home when visiting friends or family. But we, the maker community, are rarely happy unless our tech stands out from the rest. So without further ado, here’s a roundup of some fantastic retrofitted home assistant projects you can recreate and give pride of place in your kitchen, on your bookshelf, or wherever else you’d like to talk to your virtual, disembodied PA.
Turned an 80s Tomy Mr Money into a little Google AIY / Raspberry Pi based assistant.
Matt ‘Circuitbeard’ Brailsford’s Tomy Mr Money Google AIY Assistant is just one of many home-brew home assistants makers have built since the release of APIs for Amazon Alexa and Google Home. Here are some more…
Teddy Ruxpin
Oh Teddy, how exciting and mysterious you were when I unwrapped you back in the mideighties. With your awkwardly moving lips and twitching eyelids, you were the cream of the crop of robotic toys! How was I to know that during my thirties, you would become augmented with home assistant software and suddenly instil within me a fear unlike any I’d felt before? (Save for my lifelong horror of ET…)
Please watch: “DIY Fidget LED Display – Part 1” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAZIc82Duzk -~-~~-~~~-~~-~- There are tons of virtual assistants out on the market: Siri, Ok Google, Alexa, etc. I had this crazy idea…what if I made the virtual assistant real…kinda. I decided to take an old animatronic teddy bear and hack it so that it ran Amazon Alexa.
Several makers around the world have performed surgery on Teddy to install a Raspberry Pi within his stomach and integrate him with Amazon Alexa Voice or Google’s AIY Projects Voice kit. And because these makers are talented, they’ve also managed to hijack Teddy’s wiring to make his lips move in time with his responses to your commands. Freaky…
Speaking of freaky: check out Zack’s Furlexa — an Amazon Alexa Furby that will haunt your nightmares.
Give old tech new life
Devices that were the height of technology when you purchased them may now be languishing in your attic collecting dust. With new and improved versions of gadgets and gizmos being released almost constantly, it is likely that your household harbours a spare whosit or whatsit which you can dismantle and give a new Raspberry Pi heart and purpose.
Take, for example, Martin Mander’s Google Pi intercom. By gutting and thoroughly cleaning a vintage intercom, Martin fashioned a suitable housing the Google AIY Projects Voice kit to create a new home assistant for his house:
This is a 1986 Radio Shack Intercom that I’ve converted into a Google Home style device using a Raspberry Pi and the Google AIY (Artificial Intelligence Yourself) kit that came free with the MagPi magazine (issue 57). It uses the Google Assistant to answer questions and perform actions, using IFTTT to integrate with smart home accessories and other web services.
Not only does this build look fantastic, it’s also a great conversation starter for any visitors who had a similar device during the eighties.
…and then I’ll put that box inside of another box, and then I’ll mail that box to myself, and when it arrives…
A GIF. A harmless, little GIF…and proof of the comms team’s obsession with The Emperor’s New Groove.
You don’t have to be fancy when it comes to housing your home assistant. And often, especially if you’re working with the smaller people in your household, the results of a simple homespun approach are just as delightful.
Here are Hannah and her dad Tom, explaining how they built a home assistant together and fit it inside an old cigar box:
My 7 year old daughter and I decided to play around with the Raspberry Pi and build ourselves an Amazon Echo (Alexa). The video tells you about what we did and the links below will take you to all the sites we used to get this up and running.
And now it’s your turn! I challenge you all (and also myself) to create a home assistant using the Raspberry Pi. Whether you decide to fit Amazon Alexa inside an old shoebox or Google Home inside your sister’s Barbie, I’d love to see what you create using the free home assistant software available online.
Check out these otherhomeassistants for Raspberry Pi, and keep an eye on our blog to see what I manage to create as part of the challenge.
HackSpace is the new monthly magazine for people who love to make things and those who want to learn. Grab some duct tape, fire up a microcontroller, ready a 3D printer and hack the world around you!
HackSpace is the new monthly magazine for the modern maker. Learn more at http://hsmag.cc. Launching on the 23rd November the magazine will be packed with projects for fixers and tinkerers of all abilities. We’ll teach you new techniques and give you refreshers on familiar ones, from 3D printing, laser cutting, and woodworking to electronics and Internet of Things.
HackSpace magazine
Each month, HackSpace will feature tutorials and projects to help you build and learn. Whether you’re into 3D printing, woodworking, or weird and wonderful IoT projects, HackSpace will help you get more out of hardware hacking by giving you the ideas and skills to take your builds to the next level.
HackSpace is a community magazine written by makers for makers, and we want your input. So if there’s something you want to see in the magazine, tell us about it. And if you have a great project that you believe deserves a place within a future issue, then show it to us.
Get your free copy
Eager to get your hands on HackSpace? Sign up for a free copy of issue 1 by visiting the website! You have until 17 November to do so. Moreover, if you’re the manager of a hack- and makerspace, you can also sign up for a whole box of free copies for your members to enjoy by filling in the details of your venue here.
We want HackSpace magazine to be available to as many people as possible, so we’ll be releasing a free PDF of every monthly issue alongside the print version. You won’t have to wait for us to release articles online — everything will be available free of charge from day one!
Get your monthly copy
For those who’d rather have the hard copy of HackSpace for their home library, garden shed, or coffee table, subscriptions start at just £4.00 a month for a rolling subscription, and even less than that if you’re already a subscriber to The MagPi magazine.
You will also be able to purchase this new magazine from selected newsagents in the UK from 23 November onward, and in the USA and Australia a few weeks later.
Hi folks, Rob from The MagPi here! Issue 63 is now available, and it’s a huge one: we finally show you how to create the ultimate Raspberry Pi arcade cabinet in our latest detailed tutorial, so get some quarters and your saw ready.
Totally awesome video game builds!
The 16-page-long arcade machine instructions cover everything from the tools you need and how to do the woodwork, to setting up the electronics. In my spare time, I pretend to be Street Fighter baddie M. Bison, so I’m no stranger to arcade machines. However, I had never actually built one — luckily, the excellent Bob Clagett of I Like To Make Stuff was generous enough to help out with this project. I hope you enjoy reading the article, and making your own cabinet, as much as I enjoyed writing and building them.
Projects for kids
Retro gaming isn’t the only thing you’ll find in this issue of The MagPi though. We have a big feature called Junior Pi Projects, which we hope will inspire young people to make something really cool using Scratch or Python.
As usual, the new issue also includes a collection of other tutorials for you to follow, for example for building a hydroponic garden, or making a special MIDI box. There are also fantastic maker projects to read up on, and reviews to tempt your wallet.
The kids are alright
Get The MagPi 63
You can grab The MagPi 63 right now from WH Smith, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Asda. If you live in the US, check out your local Barnes & Noble or Micro Center in the next few days. You can also get the new issue online from our store, or digitally via our Android or iOS apps. And don’t forget, there’s always the free PDF as well.
Subscribe for free goodies
Want to support the Raspberry Pi Foundation, the magazine, and get some cool free stuff? If you take out a twelve-month print subscription to The MagPi, you’ll get a Pi Zero W, Pi Zero case, and adapter cables absolutely free! This offer does not currently have an end date.
That’s it for this month! We’re off to play some games.
October has come at last, and with it, the joy of Halloween is now upon us. So while I spend the next 30 days quoting Hocus Pocus at every opportunity, here’s Adafruit’s latest spooky build … the spooktacular Haunted Portrait.
Haunted Portraits
If you’ve visited a haunted house such as Disney’s Haunted Mansion, or walked the halls of Hogwarts at Universal Studios, you will have seen a ‘moving portrait’. Whether it’s the classic ‘did that painting just blink?’ approach, or occupants moving in and out of frame, they’re an effective piece of spooky decoration – and now you can make your own!
Adafruit’s AdaBox
John Park, maker extraordinaire, recently posted a live make video where he used the contents of the Raspberry Pi-themed AdaBox 005 to create a blinking portrait.
The Adabox is Adafruit’s own maker subscription service where plucky makers receive a mystery parcel containing exciting tech and inspirational builds. Their more recent delivery, the AdaBox 005, contains a Raspberry Pi Zero, their own Joy Bonnet, a case, and peripherals, including Pimoroni’s no-solder Hammer Headers.
While you can purchase the AdaBoxes as one-off buys, subscribers get extra goodies. With AdaBox 005, they received bonus content including Raspberry Pi swag in the form of stickers, and a copy of The MagPi Magazine.
The contents of AdaBox 005 allows makers to build their own Raspberry Pi Zero tiny gaming machine. But the ever-working minds of the Adafruit team didn’t want to settle there, so they decided to create more tutorials based on the box’s contents, such as John Park’s Haunted Portrait.
Bringing a portrait to life
Alongside the AdaBox 005 content, all of which can be purchased from Adafruit directly, you’ll need a flat-screen monitor and a fancy frame. The former could be an old TV or computer screen while the latter, unless you happen to have an ornate frame that perfectly fits your monitor, can be made from cardboard, CNC-cut wood or gold-painted macaroni and tape … probably.
You’ll need to attach headers to your Raspberry Pi Zero. For those of you who fear the soldering iron, the Hammer Headers can be hammered into place without the need for melty hot metal. If you’d like to give soldering a go, you can follow Laura’s Getting Started With Soldering tutorial video.
In his tutorial, John goes on to explain how to set up the Joy Bonnet (if you wish to use it as an added controller), set your Raspberry Pi to display in portrait mode, and manipulate an image in Photoshop or GIMP to create the blinking effect.
Blinking eyes are just the start of the possibilities for this project. This is your moment to show off your image manipulation skills! Why not have the entire head flash to show the skull within? Or have an ethereal image appear in the background of an otherwise unexceptional painting of a bowl of fruit?
In the final stages of the tutorial, John explains how to set an image slideshow running on the Pi, and how to complete the look with the aforementioned ornate frame. He also goes into detail about the importance of using a matte effect screen or transparent gels to give a more realistic ‘painted’ feel.
You’ll find everything you need to make your own haunted portrait here, including a link to John’s entire live stream.
Get spooky!
We’re going to make this for Pi Towers. In fact, I’m wondering whether I could create an entire gallery of portraits specifically for our reception area and see how long it takes people to notice …
… though I possibly shouldn’t have given my idea away on this rather public blog post.
If you make the Haunted Portrait, or any other Halloween-themed Pi build, make sure you share it with us via social media, or in the comments below.
Hi folks, Rob here from The MagPi. I’m excited to introduce to you all issue 62 of The MagPi, in which we go block crazy with LEGO! This month’s magazine is brimming with 14 pages of magnificent Raspberry Pi projects using these ubiquitous building blocks.
LEGO of everything and get one from the shops right now!
LEGO + Raspberry Pi
In our cover feature you’ll find fun tutorials from our friends at Dexter Industries, such as a Rubik’s cube-solving robot and a special automaton that balances on two wheels. We also show you how to build a retro console case for your Pi out of LEGO, and we have eight other projects to inspire you to make your own incredible brick creations.
Weekend fun
Back at school and looking for a weekend distraction? Check out our weekend projects feature, and build yourself a smart fridge or a door trigger that plays your theme song as you enter the room! Mine is You’re Welcome from Moana. What’s yours?
We have a ton of other wonderful projects, tutorials, and reviews in this issue as well, including a GIF camera, a hydroponic garden, and a Halloween game!
You can’t escape our annual spooktacular puns. That would be impossi-ghoul.
Get The MagPi 62
Grab the latest issue of The MagPi from WH Smith, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Asda. If you live in the US, check out your local Barnes & Noble or Micro Center over the next few days. You can also get the new issue online from our store, or digitally via our Android or iOS app. And don’t forget, there’s always the free PDF as well.
Subscribe for free goodies
Some of you have asked me about the goodies that we give out to subscribers. This is how it works: if you take out a twelve-month print subscription to The MagPi, you’ll get a Pi Zero W, Pi Zero case, and adapter cables absolutely free! This offer does not currently have an end date.
Hey folks! Rob here, with another roundup of the latest The MagPi magazine. MagPi 61 focuses on some incredible ‘must make’ Raspberry Pi Zero W projects, 3D printers and – oh, did someone mention the Google AIY Voice Projects Kit?
Make amazing Raspberry Pi Zero W projects with our latest issue
Inside MagPi 61
In issue 61, we’re focusing on the small but mighty wonder that is the Raspberry Pi Zero W, and on some of the very best projects we’ve found for you to build with it. From arcade machines to robots, dash cams, and more – it’s time to make the most of our $10 computer.
And if that’s not enough, we’ve also delved deeper into the maker relationship between Raspberry Pi and Ardunio, with some great creations such as piano stairs, a jukebox, and a smart home system. There’s also a selection of excellent tutorials on building 3D printers, controlling Hue lights, and making cool musical instruments.
Spin it, DJ!
Get the MagPi 61
The new issue is out right now, and you can pick up a copy at WH Smith, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Asda. If you live in the US, check out your local Barnes & Noble or Micro Center over the next few days. You can also get the new issue online from our store, or digitally via our Android or iOS app. And don’t forget, there’s always the free PDF as well.
Subscribe for free goodies
Some of you have asked me about the goodies that we give out to subscribers. This is how it works: if you take out a twelve-month print subscription to The MagPi, you’ll get a Pi Zero W, Pi Zero case, and adapter cables, absolutely free! This offer does not currently have an end date.
We hope you all enjoy the issue. Oh, and if you’re at World Maker Faire, New York, come and see us at the Raspberry Pi stall! Otherwise – see you next month.
This column is from The MagPi issue 55. You can download a PDF of the full issue for free, or subscribe to receive the print edition in your mailbox or the digital edition on your tablet. All proceeds from the print and digital editions help the Raspberry Pi Foundation achieve its charitable goals.
David Pride’s experiences in computer education came slightly later in life. He admits to not being a grade-A student: he left school with few qualifications, unable to pursue further education at university. There was, however, a teacher who instilled in him a passion for computers and coding which would stick with him indefinitely.
David joined us at the St James’s Palace community celebration, mingling with the likes of the Duke of York, plus organisers of Jams and clubs, such as Grace and Femi
Welcome to the Community
Twenty years later, back in 2012, David heard of the Raspberry Pi – a soon-to-be-released “new little marvel” that he instantly fell for, head first. Despite a lack of knowledge in Linux and Python, he experimented and had fun. He found a Raspberry Jam and, with it, Pi enthusiasts like Mike Horne and Peter Onion. The projects on display at the Jam were enough to push David further into the Raspberry Pi rabbit hole and, after working his way through several Python books, he began to take steps into the world of formal higher education.
David’s determination to access and complete further education in computing has earned him a three-year PhD studentship. Not bad for a “lousy student”
Back to School
With a Mooc qualification from Rice University under his belt, he continued to improve upon his self-taught knowledge, and was fortunate enough to be accepted to study for a master’s degree in Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire. With a distinction for his final dissertation, David completed the course with an overall distinction for his MSc, and was recently awarded a fully funded PhD studentship with The Open University’s Knowledge Media Institute.
Self-playing xylophones, Wiimote air drums, Lego sorters, Pi Wars robots, and more. David is continually hacking toys, giving them new Pi-powered life
Maker of things
The portfolio of projects that helped him to achieve his many educational successes has provided regular retweet material for the Raspberry Pi Twitter account, and we’ve highlighted his fun, imaginativework on this blog before. His builds have travelled to a range of Jams and made their way to the Raspberry Pi and Code Club stands at the Bett Show, as well as to our birthday celebrations.
“Pi & Chips – with a little extra source”
His website, the pun-tastic Pi and Chips, is home to the majority of his work; David also links to YouTube videos and walk-throughs of his projects, and relates his experiences at various events. If you’ve followed any of the action across the Raspberry Pi social media channels – or indeed read any previous issues of The MagPi magazine – you’ll no doubt have seen a couple of David’s projects.
Many readers will have come across the wonderful 4-Bot before, and it has even made an appearance alongside David in a recent Bloomberg interview. Considering the trillions of possible game positions, David made a compromise and, if you’re lucky, you may just be able to beat it
The 4-Bot, a robotic second player for the family game Connect Four, allows people to go head to head with a Pi-powered robotic arm. Using a Python imaging library, the 4-Bot splits the game grid into 42 squares, and recognises them as being red, yellow, or empty by reading the RGB value of the space. Using the minimax algorithm, 4-Bot is able to play each move within 25 seconds. Believe us when we say that it’s not as easy to beat as you’d hope. Then there’s his more recent air drum kit, which uses an old toy found at a car boot sale together with a Wiimote to make a functional air drum that showcases David’s toy-hacking abilities… and his complete lack of rhythm. He does fare much better on his homemade laser harp, though!
Maker Andrew Jones took a Raspberry Pi and the Google Assistant SDK and created a gorgeous-looking, and highly functional, alternative to store-bought smart speakers.
In this video I get an “Ok Google” voice activated AI assistant running on a raspberry pi. I also hand make a nice wooden box for it to live in.
OK Google, what are you?
Google Assistant is software of the same ilk as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana. It’s a virtual assistant that allows you to request information, play audio, and control smart home devices via voice commands.
One can barely see the iPhone’s screen. That’s because I have a privacy protection screen. Sorry, did not check the camera angle. Learn how to create your own loop, why we put Cortana out of the loop, and how to train Siri to an artificial voice: https://www.danrl.com/2016/12/01/looping-ais-siri-alexa-google-home.html
You probably have a digital assistant on your mobile phone, and if you go to the home of someone even mildly tech-savvy, you may see a device awaiting commands via a wake word such the device’s name or, for the Google Assistant, the phrase “OK, Google”.
Homebrew versions
Understanding the maker need to ‘put tech into stuff’ and upgrade everyday objects into everyday objects 2.0, the creators of these virtual assistants have allowed access for developers to run their software on devices such as the Raspberry Pi. This means that your common-or-garden homemade robot can now be controlled via voice, and your shed-built home automation system can have easy-to-use internet connectivity via a reliable, multi-device platform.
Andrew’s Google Assistant build
Andrew gives a peerless explanation of how the Google Assistant works:
There’s Google’s Cloud. You log into Google’s Cloud and you do a bunch of cloud configuration cloud stuff. And then on the Raspberry Pi you install some Python software and you do a bunch of configuration. And then the cloud and the Pi talk the clouds kitten rainbow protocol and then you get a Google AI assistant.
It all makes perfect sense. Though for more extra detail, you could always head directly to Google.
I couldn’t have explained it better myself
Andrew decided to take his Google Assistant-enabled Raspberry Pi and create a new body for it. One that was more aesthetically pleasing than the standard Pi-inna-box. After wiring his build and cannibalising some speakers and a microphone, he created a sleek, wooden body that would sit quite comfortably in any Bang & Olufsen shop window.
It’s more straightforward than Andrew’s explanation suggests, we promise! And with an array of useful resources online, you should be able to incorporate your choice of virtual assistants into your build.
If you’re looking for more information on Google Assistant, check out issue 57 of The MagPi Magazine, free to download as a PDF. The print edition of this issue came with a free AIY Projects Voice Kit, and you can sign up for The MagPi newsletter to be the first to know about the kit’s availability for purchase.
GPIO Zero v1.4 is out now! It comes with a set of new features, including a handy pinout command line tool. To start using this newest version of the API, update your Raspbian OS now:
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
Some of the things we’ve added will make it easier for you try your hand on different programming styles. In doing so you’ll build your coding skills, and will improve as a programmer. As a consequence, you’ll learn to write more complex code, which will enable you to take on advanced electronics builds. And on top of that, you can use the skills you’ll acquire in other computing projects.
The new pinout tool
Developing GPIO Zero
Nearly two years ago, I started the GPIO Zero project as a simple wrapper around the low-level RPi.GPIO library. I wanted to create a simpler way to control GPIO-connected devices in Python, based on three years’ experience of training teachers, running workshops, and building projects. The idea grew over time, and the more we built for our Python library, the more sophisticated and powerful it became.
One of the great things about Python is that it’s a multi-paradigm programming language. You can write code in a number of different styles, according to your needs. You don’t have to write classes, but you can if you need them. There are functional programming tools available, but beginners get by without them. Importantly, the more advanced features of the language are not a barrier to entry.
Become a more advanced programmer
As a beginner to programming, you usually start by writing procedural programs, in which the flow moves from top to bottom. Then you’ll probably add loops and create your own functions. Your next step might be to start using libraries which introduce new patterns that operate in a different manner to what you’ve written before, for example threaded callbacks (event-driven programming). You might move on to object-oriented programming, extending the functionality of classes provided by other libraries, and starting to write your own classes. Occasionally, you may make use of tools created with functional programming techniques.
Take control of the buttons in your life
It’s much the same with GPIO Zero: you can start using it very easily, and we’ve made it simple to progress along the learning curve towards more advanced programming techniques. For example, if you want to make a push button control an LED, the easiest way to do this is via procedural programming using a while loop:
from gpiozero import LED, Button
led = LED(17)
button = Button(2)
while True:
if button.is_pressed:
led.on()
else:
led.off()
But another way to achieve the same thing is to use events:
from gpiozero import LED, Button
from signal import pause
led = LED(17)
button = Button(2)
button.when_pressed = led.on
button.when_released = led.off
pause()
You could even use a declarative approach, and set the LED’s behaviour in a single line:
from gpiozero import LED, Button
from signal import pause
led = LED(17)
button = Button(2)
led.source = button.values
pause()
You will find that using the procedural approach is a great start, but at some point you’ll hit a limit, and will have to try a different approach. The example above can be approach in several programming styles. However, if you’d like to control a wider range of devices or a more complex system, you need to carefully consider which style works best for what you want to achieve. Being able to choose the right programming style for a task is a skill in itself.
Source/values properties
So how does the led.source = button.values thing actually work?
Every GPIO Zero device has a .value property. For example, you can read a button’s state (True or False), and read or set an LED’s state (so led.value = True is the same as led.on()). Since LEDs and buttons operate with the same value set (True and False), you could say led.value = button.value. However, this only sets the LED to match the button once. If you wanted it to always match the button’s state, you’d have to use a while loop. To make things easier, we came up with a way of telling devices they’re connected: we added a .values property to all devices, and a .source to output devices. Now, a loop is no longer necessary, because this will do the job:
led.source = button.values
This is a simple approach to connecting devices using a declarative style of programming. In one single line, we declare that the LED should get its values from the button, i.e. when the button is pressed, the LED should be on. You can even mix the procedural with the declarative style: at one stage of the program, the LED could be set to match the button, while in the next stage it could just be blinking, and finally it might return back to its original state.
These additions are useful for connecting other devices as well. For example, a PWMLED (LED with variable brightness) has a value between 0 and 1, and so does a potentiometer connected via an ADC (analogue-digital converter) such as the MCP3008. The new GPIO Zero update allows you to say led.source = pot.values, and then twist the potentiometer to control the brightness of the LED.
But what if you want to do something more complex, like connect two devices with different value sets or combine multiple inputs?
We provide a set of device source tools, which allow you to process values as they flow from one device to another. They also let you send in artificial values such as random data, and you can even write your own functions to generate values to pass to a device’s source. For example, to control a motor’s speed with a potentiometer, you could use this code:
from gpiozero import Motor, MCP3008
from signal import pause
motor = Motor(20, 21)
pot = MCP3008()
motor.source = pot.values
pause()
This works, but it will only drive the motor forwards. If you wanted the potentiometer to drive it forwards and backwards, you’d use the scaled tool to scale its values to a range of -1 to 1:
from gpiozero import Motor, MCP3008
from gpiozero.tools import scaled
from signal import pause
motor = Motor(20, 21)
pot = MCP3008()
motor.source = scaled(pot.values, -1, 1)
pause()
And to separately control a robot’s left and right motor speeds with two potentiometers, you could do this:
from gpiozero import Robot, MCP3008
from signal import pause
robot = Robot(left=(2, 3), right=(4, 5))
left = MCP3008(0)
right = MCP3008(1)
robot.source = zip(left.values, right.values)
pause()
GPIO Zero and Blue Dot
Martin O’Hanlon created a Python library called Blue Dot which allows you to use your Android device to remotely control things on their Raspberry Pi. The API is very similar to GPIO Zero, and it even incorporates the value/values properties, which means you can hook it up to GPIO devices easily:
from bluedot import BlueDot
from gpiozero import LED
from signal import pause
bd = BlueDot()
led = LED(17)
led.source = bd.values
pause()
GPIO Zero supports multiple low-level GPIO libraries. We use RPi.GPIO by default, but you can choose to use RPIO or pigpio instead. The pigpio library supports remote connections, so you can run GPIO Zero on one Raspberry Pi to control the GPIO pins of another, or run code on a PC (running Windows, Mac, or Linux) to remotely control the pins of a Pi on the same network. You can even control two or more Pis at once!
If you’re using Raspbian on a Raspberry Pi (or a PC running our x86 Raspbian OS), you have everything you need to remotely control GPIO. If you’re on a PC running Windows, Mac, or Linux, you just need to install gpiozero and pigpio using pip. See our guide on configuring remote GPIO.
I road-tested the new pin_factory syntax at the Raspberry Jam @ Pi Towers
There are a number of different ways to use remote pins:
Set the default pin factory and remote IP address with environment variables:
import gpiozero
from gpiozero import LED
from gpiozero.pins.pigpio import PiGPIOFactory
gpiozero.Device.pin_factory = PiGPIOFactory(host='192.168.1.2')
led = LED(17)
The pin_factory keyword argument allows you to use multiple Pis in the same script:
from gpiozero import LED
from gpiozero.pins.pigpio import PiGPIOFactory
factory2 = PiGPIOFactory(host='192.168.1.2')
factory3 = PiGPIOFactory(host='192.168.1.3')
local_hat = TrafficHat()
remote_hat2 = TrafficHat(pin_factory=factory2)
remote_hat3 = TrafficHat(pin_factory=factory3)
This is a really powerful feature! For more, read this remote GPIO tutorial in The MagPi, and check out the remote GPIO recipes in our documentation.
GPIO Zero on your PC
GPIO Zero doesn’t have any dependencies, so you can install it on your PC using pip. In addition to the API’s remote GPIO control, you can use its ‘mock’ pin factory on your PC. We originally created the mock pin feature for the GPIO Zero test suite, but we found that it’s really useful to be able to test GPIO Zero code works without running it on real hardware:
$ GPIOZERO_PIN_FACTORY=mock python3
>>> from gpiozero import LED
>>> led = LED(22)
>>> led.blink()
>>> led.value
True
>>> led.value
False
You can even tell pins to change state (e.g. to simulate a button being pressed) by accessing an object’s pin property:
>>> from gpiozero import LED
>>> led = LED(22)
>>> button = Button(23)
>>> led.source = button.values
>>> led.value
False
>>> button.pin.drive_low()
>>> led.value
True
You can also use the pinout command line tool if you set your pin factory to ‘mock’. It gives you a Pi 3 diagram by default, but you can supply a revision code to see information about other Pi models. For example, to use the pinout tool for the original 256MB Model B, just type pinout -r 2.
There are great GPIO Zero tutorials and projects in The MagPi magazine every month. Moreover, they also publish Simple Electronics with GPIO Zero, a book which collects a series of tutorials useful for building your knowledge of physical computing. And the best thing is, you can download it, and all magazine issues, for free!
Check out the API documentation and read more about what’s new in GPIO Zero on my blog. We have lots planned for the next release. Watch this space.
Get building!
The world of physical computing is at your fingertips! Are you feeling inspired?
If you’ve never tried your hand on physical computing, our Build a robot buggy learning resource is the perfect place to start! It’s your step-by-step guide for building a simple robot controlled with the help of GPIO Zero.
If you have a gee-whizz idea for an electronics project, do share it with us below. And if you’re currently working on a cool build and would like to show us how it’s going, pop a link to it in the comments.
Hey folks, Rob from The MagPi here! It’s the last Thursday of the month, and that can only mean one thing: a brand-new The MagPi issue is out! In The MagPi 60, we’re bringing you the top troubleshooting tips for your Raspberry Pi, sourced directly from our amazing community.
The MagPi #60 comes with a huge troubleshooting guide
The MagPi 60
Our feature-length guide covers snags you might encounter while using a Raspberry Pi, and it is written for newcomers and veterans alike! Do you hit a roadblock while booting up your Pi? Are you having trouble connecting it to a network? Don’t worry – in this issue you’ll find troubleshooting advice you can use to solve your problem. And, as always, if you’re still stuck, you can head over to the Raspberry Pi forums for help.
More than troubleshooting
That’s not all though – Issue 60 also includes a disc with Raspbian-x86! This version of Raspbian for PCs contains all the recent updates and additions, such as offline Scratch 2.0 and the new Thonny IDE. And – *drumroll* – the disc version can be installed to your PC or Mac. The last time we had a Raspbian disc on the cover, many of you requested an installable version, so here you are! There is an installation guide inside the mag, so you’ll be all set to get going.
On top of that, you’ll find our usual array of amazing tutorials, projects, and reviews. There’s a giant guitar, Siri voice control, Pi Zeros turned into wireless-connected USB drives, and even a review of a new robot kit. You won’t want to miss it!
I wasn’t kidding about the giant guitar
How to get a copy
Grab your copy today in the UK from WHSmith, Sainsbury’s, Asda, and Tesco. Copies will be arriving very soon in US stores, including Barnes & Noble and Micro Center. You can also get the new issue online from our store, or digitally via our Android or iOS app. And don’t forget, there’s always the free PDF as well.
Subscribe for free goodies
Some of you have asked me about the goodies that we give out to subscribers. This is how it works: if you take out a twelve-month print subscription of The MagPi, you’ll get a Pi Zero W, Pi Zero case, and adapter cables absolutely free! This offer does not currently have an end date.
Alright, I think I’ve covered everything! So that’s it. I’ll see you next month.
When we released the Google AIY Projects kit with Issue 57 of The MagPi in May, we could hardly wait to see what you in the community would build with it. Being able to add voice interaction to your Raspberry Pi projects opens up a world of possibilities for exciting digital making.
One such project is maker Martin Mander‘s Google Pi Intercom. We love this build for its retro feel and modern functionality, a combination of characteristics shared by many of Martin’s creations.
This is a 1986 Radio Shack Intercom that I’ve converted into a Google Home style device using a Raspberry Pi and the Google AIY (Artificial Intelligence Yourself) kit that came free with the MagPi magazine (issue 57). It uses the Google Assistant to answer questions and perform actions, using IFTTT to integrate with smart home accessories and other web services.
Inter-com again?
If you’ve paid any attention at all to the world of Raspberry Pi in the last few months, you’ve probably seen the Google AIY Projects kit that came free with The MagPi #57. It includes a practical cardboard housing, but of course makers everywhere have been upgrading their kits, for example by creating a laser-cut wooden box. Martin, however, has taken things to the next level: he’s installed his AIY kit in a wall-mounted intercom from 1986.
The components of the Google Pi Intercom
It’s all (inter)coming together
Martin already had not one, but three vintage intercoms at home. So when he snatched up an AIY Projects kit, there was no doubt in his mind about how he was going to use it:
The moment I scooped the Google AIY kit, I knew that one of these old units would be a perfect match for it – after all, both were essentially based on a button, microphone, and loudspeaker, just with different technology in between.
Preparing the intercom housing
First, Martin gutted the intercom and ground away some of the excess plastic inside. This was necessary because integrating all the components was going to be a tight fit. To overhaul its look, he then gave the housing a good scrub and a new paint job. For a splash of colour, Martin affixed a strip of paper in the palette of the Google logo.
BUBBLES!
Building the Google Pi Intercom
The intercom’s speaker wasn’t going to provide good enough sound quality. Moreover, Martin quickly realised that the one included in the AIY kit was too big for this make. He hunted down a small speaker online, and set about wiring everything up.
Assembling the electronics
Martin wanted the build to resemble the original intercom as closely as possible. Consequently, he was keen to use its tilting bar to activate the device’s voice command function. Luckily, it was easy to mount the AIY kit’s button behind the bar.
Using the intercom’s tilting bar switch
Finally it was only a matter of using some hot glue and a few screws and bolts to secure all the components inside the housing. Once he’d done that, Martin just had to set up the software of the Google Assistant, and presto! He had a voice-controlled smart device for home automation.
A pretty snazzy-looking build, isn’t it? If you’d like to learn more about Martin’s Google Pi Intercom, head over to the Instructables page for a complete rundown.
Awaiting your command
The AIY Projects Kit
Didn’t manage to snap up an AIY Projects kit? Find out how to get your hands on one over at The MagPi.
Or do you have an AIY kit at home? Lucky you! You can follow our shiny new learning resource to get started with using it. There are also lots of handy articles about the kit in The MagPi #57 – download the PDF version here. If you’re stuck, or looking for inspiration, check out our AIY Projects subforum. Ask your questions, and help others by answering theirs.
What have you built with your AIY Projects kit? Be sure to share your voice-controlled project with us in the comments.
This column is from The MagPi issue 58. You can download a PDF of the full issue for free, or subscribe to receive the print edition in your mailbox or the digital edition on your tablet. All proceeds from the print and digital editions help the Raspberry Pi Foundation achieve its charitable goals.
About five years ago was the first time I unboxed a Raspberry Pi. I hooked it up to our living room television and made space on the TV stand for an old USB keyboard and mouse. Watching the $35 computer boot up for the first time impressed me, and I had a feeling it was a big deal, but I’ll admit that I had no idea how much of a phenomenon Raspberry Pi would become. I had no idea how large the community would grow. I had no idea how much my life would be changed from that moment on. And it all started with a simple first step: booting it up.
Finally a few minutes to experiment with @Raspberry_Pi! So far, I’m rather impressed!
The key to the success of Raspberry Pi as a computer – and, in turn, a community and a charitable foundation – is that there’s a low barrier to the first step you take with it. The low price is a big reason for that. Whether or not to try Raspberry Pi is not a difficult decision. Since it’s so affordable, you can just give it a go, and see how you get along.
The pressure is off
Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux operating system kernel, talked about this in a BBC News interview in 2012. He explained that a lot of people might take the first step with Raspberry Pi, but not everyone will carry on with it. But getting more people to take that first step of turning it on means there are more people who potentially will be impacted by the technology. Torvalds said:
I find things like Raspberry Pi to be an important thing: trying to make it possible for a wider group of people to tinker with computers. And making the computers cheap enough that you really can not only afford the hardware at a big scale, but perhaps more important, also afford failure.
In other words, if things don’t work out with you and your Raspberry Pi, it’s not a big deal, since it’s such an affordable computer.
In this together
Of course, we hope that more and more people who boot up a Raspberry Pi for the first time will decide to continue experimenting, creating, and learning with it. Thanks to improvements to the hardware, the Raspbian operating system, and free software packages, it’s constantly becoming easier to do many amazing things with this little computer. And our continually growing community means you’re not alone on this journey. These improvements and growth over the past few years hopefully encourage more people who boot up Raspberry Pis to keep exploring.
The first step
However, the important thing is that people are given the opportunity to take that first step, especially young people. Young learners are at a critical age, and something like the Raspberry Pi can have an enormously positive impact on the rest of their lives. It’s a major reason why our free resources are aimed at young learners. It’s also why we train educators all over the world for free. And encouraging youngsters to take their first step with Raspberry Pi could not only make a positive difference in their lives, but also in society at large.
With the affordable computational power, excellent software, supportive community, and free resources, you’re given everything you need to make a big impact in the world when you boot up a Raspberry Pi for the first time. That moment could be step one of ten, or one of ten thousand, but it’s up to you to take that first step.
Now you!
Learning and making things with the Pi is incredibly easy, and we’ve created numerous resources and tutorials to help you along. First of all, check out our hardware guide to make sure you’re all set up. Next, you can try out Scratch and Python, our favourite programming languages. Feeling creative? Learn to code music with Sonic Pi, or make visual art with Processing. Ready to control the real world with your Pi? Create a reaction game, or an LED adornment for your clothing. Maybe you’d like to do some science with the help of our Sense HAT, or become a film maker with our camera?
You can do all this with the Raspberry Pi, and so much more. The possibilities are as limitless as your imagination. So where do you want to start?
Hey everyone, Lucy here! I’m standing in for Rob this month to introduce The MagPi 59, the latest edition of the official Raspberry Pi magazine.
The MagPi 59
Ever wondered whether a Pi could truly replace your home computer? Looking for inspiration for a Pi-powered project you can make and use in the sunshine? Interested in winning a Raspberry Pi that’s a true collector’s item?
Then we’ve got you covered in Issue 59, out in stores today!
Shiny and new
The Raspberry Pi PC challenge
This month’s feature is fascinating! We set the legendary Rob Zwetsloot a challenge: use no other computer but a Raspberry Pi for a week, and let us know how it goes – for science!
Is there anything you can’t do with a $35 computer? To find out, you just have to read the magazine.
12 summer projects
We’re bringing together some of the greatest outdoor projects for the Raspberry Pi in this MagPi issue. From a high-altitude balloon, to aerial photography, to bike computers and motorised skateboards, there’s plenty of bright ideas in The MagPi 59.
Maybe your Pi will ripen in the sun?
The best of the rest in The MagPi 59
We’ve got a fantastic collection of community projects this month. Ingmar Stapel shows off Big Rob, his SatNav-guided robot, while Eric Page demonstrates his Dog Treat Dispenser. There are also interesting tutorials on building a GPS tracker, controlling a Raspberry Pi with an Android app and Bluetooth, and building an electronic wind chime with magnetometers.
You can even enter our give-away of 10 ultra-rare ‘Raspberry Pi 3 plus official case’ kits signed by none other than Eben Upton, co-creator of the Raspberry Pi. Win one and be the envy of the entire Raspberry Pi community!
MAGNETS!
You can find The MagPi 59 in the UK right now, at WHSmith, Sainsbury’s, Asda, and Tesco. Copies will be arriving in US stores including Barnes & Noble and Micro Center very soon. You can also get a copy online from our store or via our Android or iOS app. And don’t forget: there’s always the free PDF as well.
Get reading, get making, and enjoy the new issue!
Rob isn’t here to add his signature Picard GIF, but we’ve sorted it for him. He loves a good pun, so he does! – Janina & Alex
Are you tired of friends borrowing your books and never returning them? Maybe you’re sure you own 1984 but can’t seem to locate it? Do you find a strange satisfaction in using the supermarket self-checkout simply because of the barcode beep? With the ShelfChecker smart shelf from maker Annelynn described on Instructables, you can be your own librarian and never misplace your books again! Beep!
Harry Potter and the Aesthetically Pleasing Smart Shelf
The ShelfChecker smart shelf
Annelynn built her smart shelf utilising a barcode scanner, LDR light sensors, a Raspberry Pi, plus a few other peripherals and some Python scripts. She has created a fully integrated library checkout system with accompanying NeoPixel location notification for your favourite books.
This build allows you to issue your book-borrowing friends their own IDs and catalogue their usage of your treasured library. On top of that, you’ll be able to use LED NeoPixels to highlight your favourite books, registering their removal and return via light sensor tracking.
Using light sensors for book cataloguing
Once Annelynn had built the shelf, she drilled holes to fit the eight LDRs that would guard her favourite books, and separated them with corner brackets to prevent confusion.
Corner brackets keep the books in place without confusion between their respective light sensors
Due to the limitations of the MCP3008 Adafruit microchip, the smart shelf can only keep track of eight of your favourite books. But this limitation won’t stop you from cataloguing your entire home library; it simply means you get to pick your ultimate favourites that will occupy the prime real estate on your wall.
Obviously, the light sensors sense light. So when you remove or insert a book, light floods or is blocked from that book’s sensor. The sensor sends this information to the Raspberry Pi. In response, an Arduino controls the NeoPixel strip along the ‘favourites’ shelf to indicate the book’s status.
The book you are looking for is temporarily unavailable
Code your own library
While keeping a close eye on your favourite books, the system also allows creation of a complete library catalogue system with the help of a MySQL database. Users of the library can log into the system with a barcode scanner, and take out or return books recorded in the database guided by an LCD screen attached to the Pi.
Beep!
I won’t go into an extensive how-to on creating MySQL databases here on the blog, because my glamourous assistant Janina has pulled up these MySQL tutorials to help you get started. Annelynn’s Github scripts are also packed with useful comments to keep you on track.
Raspberry Pi and books
We love books and libraries. And considering the growing number of Code Clubs and makespaces into libraries across the world, and the host of book-based Pi builds we’ve come across, the love seems to be mutual.
Did I say we love books? In fact we love them so much that members of our team have even written a few.*
If you’ve set up any sort of digital making event in a library, have in some way incorporated Raspberry Pi into your own personal book collection, or even managed to recreate the events of your favourite story using digital making, make sure to let us know in the comments below.
* Shameless plug**
Fancy adding some Pi to your home library? Check out these publications from the Raspberry Pi staff:
This weekend saw my first anniversary at Raspberry Pi, and this blog marks my 100th post written for the company. It would have been easy to let one milestone or the other slide had they not come along hand in hand, begging for some sort of acknowledgement.
The day Liz decided to keep me
So here it is!
Joining the crew
Prior to my position in the Comms team as Social Media Editor, my employment history was largely made up of retail sales roles and, before that, bit parts in theatrical backstage crews. I never thought I would work for the Raspberry Pi Foundation, despite its firm position on my Top Five Awesome Places I’d Love to Work list. How could I work for a tech company when my knowledge of tech stretched as far as dismantling my Game Boy when I was a kid to see how the insides worked, or being the one friend everyone went to when their phone didn’t do what it was meant to do? I never thought about the other side of the Foundation coin, or how I could find my place within the hidden workings that turned the cogs that brought everything together.
12 Likes, 1 Comments – Alex J’rassic (@thealexjrassic) on Instagram: “… when suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a new job with a dream company. #raspberrypi #positive…”
A little luck, a well-written though humorous resumé, and a meeting with Liz and Helen later, I found myself the newest member of the growing team at Pi Towers.
Ticking items off the Bucket List
I thought it would be fun to point out some of the chances I’ve had over the last twelve months and explain how they fit within the world of Raspberry Pi. After all, we’re about more than just a $35 credit card-sized computer. We’re a charitable Foundation made up of some wonderful and exciting projects, people, and goals.
High altitude ballooning (HAB)
Skycademy offers educators in the UK the chance to come to Pi Towers Cambridge to learn how to plan a balloon launch, build a payload with onboard Raspberry Pi and Camera Module, and provide teachers with the skills needed to take their students on an adventure to near space, with photographic evidence to prove it.
332 Likes, 5 Comments – Raspberry Pi (@raspberrypifoundation) on Instagram: “All the screens you need to hunt balloons. . We have our landing point and are now rushing to…”
I was fortunate enough to join Sky Captain James, along with Dan Fisher, Dave Akerman, and Steve Randell on a test launch back in August last year. Testing out new kit that James had still been tinkering with that morning, we headed to a field in Elsworth, near Cambridge, and provided Facebook Live footage of the process from payload build to launch…to the moment when our balloon landed in an RAF shooting range some hours later.
“Can we have our balloon back, please, mister?”
Having enjoyed watching Blue Peter presenters send up a HAB when I was a child, I marked off the event on my bucket list with a bold tick, and I continue to show off the photographs from our Raspberry Pi as it reached near space.
13 Likes, 2 Comments – Alex J’rassic (@thealexjrassic) on Instagram: “Spend the day launching/chasing a high-altitude balloon. Look how high it went!!! #HAB #ballooning…”
You can find more information on Skycademy here, plus more detail about our test launch day in Dan’s blog post here.
Dear Raspberry Pi Friends…
My desk is slowly filling with stuff: notes, mementoes, and trinkets that find their way to me from members of the community, both established and new to the life of Pi. There are thank you notes, updates, and more from people I’ve chatted to online as they explore their way around the world of Pi.
*heart melts*
By plugging myself into social media on a daily basis, I often find hidden treasures that go unnoticed due to the high volume of tags we receive on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so on. Kids jumping off chairs in delight as they complete their first Scratch project, newcomers to the Raspberry Pi shedding a tear as they make an LED blink on their kitchen table, and seasoned makers turning their hobby into something positive to aid others.
It’s wonderful to join in the excitement of people discovering a new skill and exploring the community of Raspberry Pi makers: I’ve been known to shed a tear as a result.
Meeting educators at Bett, chatting to teen makers at makerspaces, and sharing a cupcake or three at the birthday party have been incredible opportunities to get to know you all.
You’re all brilliant.
The Queens of Robots, both shoddy and otherwise
Last year we welcomed the Queen of Shoddy Robots, Simone Giertz to Pi Towers, where we chatted about making, charity, and space while wandering the colleges of Cambridge and hanging out with flat Tim Peake.
597 Likes, 3 Comments – Raspberry Pi (@raspberrypifoundation) on Instagram: “Queen of Robots @simonegiertz came to visit #PiTowers today. We hung out with cardboard…”
Ahhhh!!! I still can’t believe I got to hang out and make stuff at the @Raspberry_Pi towers!! Thank you thank you!!
Meeting such wonderful, exciting, and innovative YouTubers was a fantastic inspiration to work on my own projects and to try to do more to help others discover ways to connect with tech through their own interests.
Those ‘wow’ moments
Every Raspberry Pi project I see on a daily basis is awesome. The moment someone takes an idea and does something with it is, in my book, always worthy of awe and appreciation. Whether it be the aforementioned flashing LED, or sending Raspberry Pis to the International Space Station, if you have turned your idea into reality, I applaud you.
Some of my favourite projects over the last twelve months have not only made me say “Wow!”, they’ve also inspired me to want to do more with myself, my time, and my growing maker skill.
Great to meet @alexjrassic today and nerd out about @Raspberry_Pi and weather balloons and @Space_Station and all things #edtech ⛅🛰🤖
Projects such as Museum in a Box, a wonderful hands-on learning aid that brings the world to the hands of children across the globe, honestly made me tear up as I placed a miniaturised 3D-printed Virginia Woolf onto a wooden box and gasped as she started to speak to me.
Jill Ogle’s Let’s Robot project had me in awe as Twitch-controlled Pi robots tackled mazes, attempted to cut birthday cake, or swung to slap Jill in the face over webcam.
@SryAbtYourCats @tekn0rebel @Beam Lol speaking of faces… https://t.co/1tqFlMNS31
Every day I discover new, wonderful builds that both make me wish I’d thought of them first, and leave me wondering how they manage to make them work in the first place.
Space
We have Raspberry Pis in space. SPACE. Actually space.
19 Likes, 1 Comments – Alex J’rassic (@thealexjrassic) on Instagram: “Made a Gif Cam using a Raspberry Pi, Pi camera, button and a couple LEDs. . When you press the…”
The next twelve months
Despite Eben jokingly firing me near-weekly across Twitter, or Philip giving me the ‘Dad glare’ when I pull wires and buttons out of a box under my desk to start yet another project, I don’t plan on going anywhere. Over the next twelve months, I hope to continue discovering awesome Pi builds, expanding on my own skills, and curating some wonderful projects for you via the Raspberry Pi blog, the Raspberry Pi Weekly newsletter, my submissions to The MagPi Magazine, and the occasional video interview or two.
It’s been a pleasure. Thank you for joining me on the ride!
Hey folks, Rob here! What a busy month it’s been at The MagPi HQ. While we’ve been replying to your tweets, answering questions on YouTube and fiddling with our AIY Voice Project kits, we’ve managed to put together a whole new magazine for you, with issue 58 of the official Raspberry Pi magazine out in stores today.
The MagPi 58 features our latest Minecraft Pi hacks!
Minecraft Pi
The MagPi 58 is all about making with Minecraft Pi. We’ve got cool projects and hacks that let you take a selfie and display it in the Minecraft world, play music with Steve jumping on a giant piano, and use special cards to switch skins in an instant. It’s the perfect supplement to our Hacking and Making in Minecraft book!
AIY Voice Projects
It’s been great to see everyone getting excited over the last issue of the magazine, and we love seeing your pictures and videos of your AIY Voice projects. In this issue we’ve included loads of ideas to keep you going with the AIY Projects kit. Don’t forget to send us what you’ve made on Twitter!
Show us what you’ve made with your AIY Voice Projects Kit
The best of the rest in The MagPi 58
We’ve also got our usual selection of reviews, tutorials, and projects. This includes guides to making file servers and electronic instruments, along with our review of Adafruit’s Joy Bonnet handheld gaming kit.
You can get started with GUIs in The MagPi 58
You can grab the latest issue in stores in the UK right now, from WHSmith, Sainsburys, Asda, and Tesco. Copies will be arriving very soon in US stores, including Barnes & Noble and Micro Center. You can also get a copy online from our store, or digitally via our Android or iOS app. Don’t forget, there’s always the free PDF as well.
We hope you enjoy the issue! Now if you’ll excuse us, we need a nap after all the excitement!
This column is from The MagPi issue 57. You can download a PDF of the full issue for free, or subscribe to receive the print edition in your mailbox or the digital edition on your tablet. All proceeds from the print and digital editions help the Raspberry Pi Foundation achieve its charitable goals.
Taking inspiration from a widely known inspirational phrase, I like to tell people, “make the thing you wish to see in the world.” In other words, you don’t have to wait for a company to create the exact product you want. You can be a maker as well as a consumer! Prototyping with hardware has become easier and more affordable, empowering people to make products that suit their needs perfectly. And the people making these things aren’t necessarily electrical engineers, computer scientists, or product designers. They’re not even necessarily adults. They’re often self-taught hobbyists who are empowered by maker-friendly technology.
It’s a subject I’ve been very interested in, and I have written about it before. Here’s what I’ve noticed: the flow between maker project and consumer product moves in both directions. In other words, consumer products can start off as maker projects. Just take a look at the story behind many of the crowdfunded products on sites such as Kickstarter. Conversely, consumer products can evolve into maker products as well. The cover story for the latest issue of The MagPi is a perfect example of that. Google has given you the resources you need to build your own dedicated Google Assistant device. How cool is that?
@Raspberry_Pi @TheMagP1 Oh this is going to be a ridiculous amount of fun. #AIYProjects #woodchuck https://t.co/2sWYmpi6T1
But consumer products becoming hackable hardware isn’t always an intentional move by the product’s maker. In the 2000s, TiVo set-top DVRs were a hot product and their most enthusiastic fans figured out how to hack the product to customise it to meet their needs without any kind of support from TiVo.
Embracing change
But since then, things have changed. For example, when Microsoft’s Kinect for the Xbox 360 was released in 2010, makers were immediately enticed by its capabilities. It not only acted as a camera, but it could also sense depth, a feature that would be useful for identifying the position of objects in a space. At first, there was no hacker support from Microsoft, so Adafruit Industries announced a $3,000 bounty to create open-source drivers so that anyone could access the features of Kinect for their own projects. Since then, Microsoft has embraced the use of Kinect for these purposes.
iRobot’s Create 2, a hackable version of the Roomba
Consumer product companies even make versions of their products that are specifically meant for hacking, making, and learning. Belkin’s WeMo home automation product line includes the WeMo Maker, a device that can act as a remote relay or sensor and hook into your home automation system. And iRobot offers Create 2, a hackable version of its Roomba floor-cleaning robot. While iRobot aimed the robot at STEM educators, you could use it for personal projects too. Electronic instrument maker Korg takes its maker-friendly approach to the next level by releasing the schematics for some of its analogue synthesiser products.
Why would a company want to do this? There are a few possible reasons. For one, it’s a way of encouraging consumers to create a community around a product. It could be a way for innovation with the product to continue, unchecked by the firm’s own limits on resources. For certain, it’s an awesome feel-good way for a company to empower their own users. Whatever the reason these products exist, it’s the digital maker who comes out ahead. They have more affordable tools, materials, and resources to create their own customised products and possibly learn a thing or two along the way.
With maker-friendly, hackable products, being a creator and a consumer aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, you’re probably getting the best of both worlds: great products and great opportunities to make the thing you wish to see in the world.
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