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62 Articles

Welcome to Raspberry Pi Annual

The Raspberry Pi was first created in 2012, with the intention of making digital creation accessible to all. Since then, more than 14 million units have been sold to adults and children alike. Pis of different kinds are used in classrooms, libraries, research laboratories, and of course, hackerspaces all over the world. Builders, coders and hackers are using this amazing device to create everything from doomsday switches to fruit ripening detectors. In this new Raspberry Pi Annual, we’ll bring you all the basics with step-by-step tutorials in setting up your Pi and advice from Pi pros. We’ll also show you the secrets of Pi interfacing, how to create a virtual reality setup, some exciting Python projects – and much more. Welcome to the Raspberry Pi revolution!…

Welcome to Raspberry Pi Annual

SECRETS of PI INTERFACING

Using a single-board computer such as a Raspberry Pi to control real-world devices requires two quite different skills. First, you need to be able to churn out code, and second, you need to be able to interface the Pi to external devices. Here we look at the second of those areas and, in particular, investigate how to go beyond using off-the-shelf interfaces like HATs, or even building circuits that others have designed, by designing your own electronic circuits. Using this hands-on guide, you’ll soon be able to connect switches, LEDs and so much more. Our main emphasis is interfacing to the Raspberry Pi, but most of this can also be applied to other small computers as the Arduino, which are also popular for control applications. Learn how to design simple…

SECRETS of PI INTERFACING

UNDERSTAND THE PI’S GPIO HARDWARE

Even if you’ve never connected external devices to your Raspberry Pi, you can’t fail to have noticed the double row of 40 pins at the edge of the board (26 pins on the early Pis). This is the GPIO header, otherwise known as the general-purpose input/ output connector, and it provides a means of interfacing to real-world devices. Before starting to think about designing circuits to interface to the Pi, therefore, it’s important to understand the basics of the GPIO hardware. POWER AND GROUND PINS Although referred to as the GPIO header, not all the pins connect to the GPIO hardware. Some of the other pins provide power and ground connections that are also used by hardware that’s connected to the header. The Pi’s GPIO header has eight ground pins…

UNDERSTAND THE PI’S GPIO HARDWARE

HOW TO CONNECT A SWITCH AND AN LED TO THE PI

01 Wire in the switch The first job in interfacing a switch to the Pi is to connect one of the switch’s two terminals to a GPIO pin which will be configured as an input in the software) and connect the other of its terminals to 0V (GND). Having done this, the GPIO pin will be connected to 0V, a condition that the software will see as a logic 0, whenever the switch is closed, ie held down in the case of a push button or in its on’ state with a mechanically latching toggle switch. 02 Add a pull-up resistor Although a GPIO pin wired to a switch and 0V will be at logic when the switch is closed, it be ‘floating’ when it’s open. other words, it wouldn’t…

HOW TO CONNECT A SWITCH AND AN LED TO THE PI

LOGIC CIRCUITRY EXPLAINED

Since the processor in the Raspberry Pi can carry out any imaginable logic operation, it might be reasonable to assume that there’s no benefit to be gained from using external logic circuitry. While this would be true if the Pi has sufficient GPIO pins for your application, if you’re getting close to the limit then by using external hardware logic, you can reduce the number of pins needed. Our step-by-step guide provides some examples of how to do this; here we provide an introduction to logic circuitry. LOGIC LEVELS Logic components operate on two voltages that represent the binary values of 0 and 1 although, for some applications, it might be more appropriate to think of them as off and on respectively. In the case of the Pi’s GPIO pins,…

LOGIC CIRCUITRY EXPLAINED

WORK WITH LOGIC GATES TO USE FEWER GPIO PINS

01 Use a logic simulator Before looking at some examples of logic circuitry, here’s a tip to help you check your ideas out without wiring anything up at all. If you’re not quite sure which logic devices you need, this will allow you to be sure before placing an order for components. The secret is to use a logic simulator and there are lots to choose from, some that run locally under various operating systems and some that run online. Here we’re testing the circuit from Step 6 at logic.ly/demo. 02 Use a 2-to-4 decoder Driving four LEDs usually requires four GPIO pins. However, if we have an application where only one of them needs to be illuminated at any one time, as might be the case if the LEDs…

WORK WITH LOGIC GATES TO USE FEWER GPIO PINS

EXCEED LIMITS SAFELY

Interfacing an output device such as an LED to a GPIO pin requires that the device doesn’t require more than 3.3V and it doesn’t draw more than a GPIO pin’s maximum 16mA current. Devices such as electric motors and blue or white LEDs, that require a higher voltage supply and/or draw a higher current, need special treatment. The solution is to use a transistor, which can be thought of as an electronic switch. A small current from a GPIO pin turns the transistor on or off, thereby turning on or off a separate circuit involving a higher voltage and often a higher current than a GPIO pin can supply. This secondary circuit might use the 5V on the GPIO header as its supply but, if a higher voltage is required…

EXCEED LIMITS SAFELY

Create a Pi-powered virtual reality setup

What you’ll need Raspberry Pi 3 8GB SD card Xbox 360 controller Oculus Rift Developer Kit (optional) Virtual Reality is huge now and has come a long way since the concepts and CGI visuals of Stephen King’s Lawnmower Man. It is one of the fastest growing areas of technology and you can now design models, explore new places and play games all within a virtual environment. A professional VR hardware package is expensive and will set you back several hundred pounds. However, it’s possible to emulate the VR setup up using a Raspberry Pi, Python-VRZero and a 3D graphics module, Pi3D. Now, this is purely for fun and learning, so don’t expect huge gaming PC frame rates, although some of the demos do peak at around 25-30 FPS on a…

Create a Pi-powered virtual reality setup

Use the Raspberry Pi to take control of your drone

What you’ll need Wi-Fi enabled Raspberry Pi Parrot Drone 2.0 (or other) Drones are becoming ever more popular and mainstream. You may already be aware that Amazon is currently working on using drones to deliver packages directly to your house within hours of you placing an order, creating a new requirement for them to be autonomous and programmable. This tutorial offers a little taster of a Python module which enables you to write and deploy programs to your drone. The API used is now a few years old (2014) and supports operation with Python 2.7. However, it offers a number of simple methods for beginners to create their own programs and spark your curiosity. The tutorial begins with a quick walkthrough on installing the required software and libraries. Then jump…

Use the Raspberry Pi to take control of your drone

LEGO Macintosh Classic

Like it? Not surprisingly, the Venn diagram of nostalgia for Macs and contemporary makery creates an intersection that’s packed with projects. One of Jannis’s favourites is Mans Jonasson’s NESMAC, which is an old Macintosh Classic with a Raspberry Pi inside (https:// youtu.be/ q1APtxbUfg8). Further reading To stay informed about the gifbox and weatherbox project mentioned in the interview, or any Jannis’s projects, head to his website: https:// jann.is. On his Ghost blog you’ll find a complete write-up of the LEGO Macintosh Classic. You can also follow him on Twitter: @ jannis. What inspires your projects? Pretty much all of my side projects are born from scratching an itch. In the past, that has been mostly software – starting with a blogging software called s9y in the early 2000s and more…

LEGO Macintosh Classic

Part 1: Command the seas with Sense HAT Battleships

What you’ll need ■ Raspberry Pi ■ Sense HAT The classic game of Battleships engages you to find and locate your opponent’s ships by launching torpedoes to try to sink their convoy. In part one of this two-part tutorial, you will create a version of the classic game for the Raspberry Pi Sense HAT. When completed, your program creates a random layout of enemy boats, some ammo and mostly water. Use the Sense HAT joystick to select one of 64 locations on the sea (LED matrix). Then press Enter to fire a torpedo. The program makes use of two lists: one to store the location of the enemy ships, ammo and water, and the second to track the location of your ship. When you fire a torpedo, your current position…

Part 1: Command the seas with Sense HAT Battleships

Part 2: Command the seas with Sense HAT Battleships

What you’ll need ■ Raspberry Pi ■ Sense HAT In the first part of this tutorial you started to build the classic game of Battleships, coding the features such as deploying ships, firing torpedoes and keeping a running total of your score. In part two, you will begin by installing a small program which enables you to easily create animations to play across the Sense HAT’s LED matrix. These can be used to introduce the game, display a game over message or update the player wherever your game requires it. The tutorial then completes the main mechanics of the gameplay before setting up the code for deploying the game. Begin by introducing the game with a range of sounds and verbal announcements before scrolling a boat animation across the display.…

Part 2: Command the seas with Sense HAT Battleships

Write more with Scripto

Where did the original idea for Scripto stem from? The Scripto started as a final project as part of my Computing and Design degree at the Open University. The concept of a distraction-free device for writers is not new, but it is currently under-served in the market. The Raspberry Pi was also inspirational in providing an accessible computing unit for makers who aren’t necessarily hardware experts. Could you talk us through the design and build phase of Scripto? Did you encounter any major issues? The Scripto was designed with three major goals in mind: it should be distraction-free, it should be convenient versus other solutions, and it should be cheap. Balancing the other factors with cost was a continual challenge. As the device is currently designed, I think the price…

Write more with Scripto

Use your Raspberry Pi to find and track your phone

What you’ll need ■ Raspberry Pi 3 ■ Bluetooth USB dongle (if using an older Pi model) The Raspberry Pi model 3 saw the introduction of embedded Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities. This now makes it even easier to interact with Bluetooth-enabled devices such as mobile phones, tablets and speakers. The Python programming language supports a range of libraries that enable you to interact, monitor and control various elements of a Bluetooth device. This tutorial combines the Pi’s Bluetooth hardware with Python code to create three simple but useful programs. First, build a short program to search for Bluetooth-enabled devices and return the 12- part address of each device. Once you have obtained the addresses, you can then scan and find Bluetooth services that are available on that particular device. Finally,…

Use your Raspberry Pi to find and track your phone

Make a Raspberry Pi doomsday switch

What you’ll need ■ Suitable for all models of Raspberry Pi If you’re worried about the somewhat Orwellian notion of forced disclosure of passwords, this project posits a rather radical solution to the dilemma by creating a second password for your user account, which, instead of logging you in, will nuke your home folder using special tools. While this is simple to set up, do make sure to back up your personal data to a safe place before going ahead. Also bear in mind that anyone with physical access to your machine may seize it before you have a chance to flip this kill switch. 01 Create your new user account Although you most likely will already have a user account on the Pi, create a new one for this…

Make a Raspberry Pi doomsday switch

Create a real-time LED humidity display with Python

Humidity is a measure of how much moisture or water there is in the air. In this tutorial you will use Python to build a real-time humidity display. The program takes and stores a humidity reading using the SenseHAT’s on-board sensor. Then it calculates a simple ratio to determine how many LEDs to turn on. In essence, the higher the humidity the more LEDs are turned on. Then the number of LEDs that need to be turned ‘off’ is calculated and these are added to the list. Finally, you’ll set the program to display and ‘turn on’ the required number of LEDs. The program continually loops so both the reading and LED display is updated as the humidity changes. 01 Attach the SenseHAT Ensuring that your Raspberry Pi is off,…

Create a real-time LED humidity display with Python

The top 20 Raspberry Pi add-ons

The Raspberry Pi was designed to inject much-needed enthusiasm back into computing and electronics, and thousands of Pi users have showcased amazing and innovative projects that show just how versatile it can really be. Part of this success is down to the Pi’s fundamental design, with its USB ports and GPIO pins encouraging people to interact directly with the Pi to achieve... well, just about anything. Many Pi projects have morphed into something more permanent as crowd-funding campaigns jostle with major manufacturers to provide people with all manner of addons to extend their Pi’s capabilities, without having to design something from scratch. In this roundup we’ve focussed on 20 of our favourite Pi add-ons, all of which enable you to use your Pi in different ways. You’ll find out how…

The top 20 Raspberry Pi add-ons

How to turn a Raspberry Pi into a walkie talkie

Like it? Daniel has a number of Pirelated projects that can be viewed over on his blog at projectable. me. Each project, including the talkiepi, has a full build walkthrough, so if you’re looking to reproduce the project yourself you’ll be in safe hands if you follow his instructions carefully. Further reading If you’ve got the bug and want to try and build your own talkiepi, then it’s worthwhile taking the time to explore some of the software Daniel used in the project. For all his 3D modelling, he used the fantastic Fusion 360 (http://www.autodesk.com), while he used Mumble (https://github.com/layeh/gumble) as a hub for talkiepi’s communication features. Where did the original idea for talkiepi stem from? I had the idea a few years ago to use a Raspberry Pi as…

How to turn a Raspberry Pi into a walkie talkie

Make an egg-drop game with the Sense HAT

What you’ll need ■ Sense HAT ■ Raspbian with Pixel OS with Sense HAT emulator Some of the most basic and repetitive games are the most fun to play. Consider Flappy Bird, noughts and crosses or even catch. This tutorial shows you how to create a simple drop-andcatch game that makes excellent use of some of the Sense HAT’s features. Start off by coding an egg – a yellow LED – to drop each second, and a basket – a brown LED – on the bottom row of LEDs. Use the Sense HAT’s accelerometer to read and relay back when you tilt your Sense HAT left or right, enabling you move the basket toward the egg. Successfully catch the egg and you play again, with a new egg being dropped…

Make an egg-drop game with the Sense HAT

Get to grips with the Enviro pHAT

What you’ll need ■ Raspberry Pi ■ Pimoroni Enviro pHAT Pimoroni makes a wide range of HAT (Hardware Attached on Top) boards for the Raspberry Pi. These boards are designed to be fully compatible with all Raspberry Pi models. Enter the Pi Zero, a super-slim, super-cheap, $4 version of the Pi. In response, Pimoroni created a range of HATs that fit the Pi Zero, called pHATs. This tutorial focuses on the Enviro pHAT, a nifty little board that packs in four different sensors that let you measure temperature, pressure, light levels, colour, acceleration, take a compass heading and retrieve readings from analog inputs. This creates up to ten different variables, making it ideal for monitoring conditions in your house, garage or garden. This tutorial will walk you through the initial…

Get to grips with the Enviro pHAT

Like it? Raspberry Pi camera projects are plentiful, and there are several we highly recommend you check out. One of the best is the Polatherm, which is one of the first to be based on the thermal printing method: www.dkia. at/en/node/125. Further reading Pierre has taken time to upload everything you could possibly want to know about the project over on his Hackaday page. He provides a tutorial of sorts for you to re-create your own PolaPi Zero: https:// hackaday.io/ project/19731. How did you come up with the idea behind designing the original PolaPi and the PolaPi Zero? I was first inspired by a couple of other camera-based development projects, named the PrintSnap and Polatherm Camera. These gave me some ideas for when I developed the original PolaPi model. I…

Preserve your Raspberry Pi's microSD card

What you’ll need ■ USB storage device ■ Ethernet cable At some point during the lifetime of your Raspberry Pi, you are likely to encounter a problem with your SD/ microSD card. If you’re lucky, this will be minimal; perhaps a reboot will fix it. If you’re unlucky, it could mean the end of your SD card, and the loss of all data on your Pi, including your latest project. The simple fact is that SD cards do not last forever. Flash storage, by design, has a limited number of read/write cycles. While error-correction software is built-in, and cards ship with larger-than-described storage to cover damaged blocks, eventually corruption will cause a problem. SD card corruption occurs in various ways. It might be due to a sudden variation in voltage…

Preserve your Raspberry Pi's microSD card

Build a stylish MP3 boombox for a Raspberry Pi Zero

Resources Raspberry Pi Jumper Jerky Buttons (optional) Pimoroni Speaker pHAT http://bit.ly/ Speaker-pHAT Hammer headers http://bit.ly/ HammerHeaders The Speaker pHAT is the perfect hardware to add a slick and stylish speaker to your Raspberry Pi. Visually, it has the feel of an 80s-style boombox and crams an I2S DAC and mono amplifier, a tiny 8Ω 2W speaker and a 10 LED bar graph all onto one teeny little pHAT. Now you can integrate music, notifications, speech and sound into all your Pi projects. This tutorial begins with a quick walkthrough of the GPIO Zero Python library – an excellent module which boosts a vast range of recipes for input and output devices such as motors, sensors and buttons. Create a simple button or circuit and then use the code from the…

Build a stylish MP3 boombox for a Raspberry Pi Zero

Build a Super Pi

The Raspberry Pi has transformed the way we look at computers and computing. Thanks to its ridiculously low cost of ownership, you can build a fully functional computer for under a tenner and put it to all kinds of uses. Sometimes that potential can be so open as to seem overwhelming – this is a computer that has gone into space, for goodness sake – but that shouldn’t stop you finding new and exciting ways to use it. The Pi’s versatility makes it the perfect tool for just about any task you could think for it to do. Looking for a desktop computer to replace your PC? The Raspberry Pi 3 has just about enough oomph – with the right support – to do that. How about using it as…

Build a Super Pi

The ultimate desktop Pi

The biggest advantage of using the Pi at the heart of a desktop-based system is its low cost. But if you want to eke every last drop of performance from it, what do you need to do? The first thing is – of course – to choose the latest Raspberry Pi 3 model as the core of your desktop. It’s the fastest, most powerful Pi yet, and you can squeeze additional power from it through overclocking – setting the processor to a higher speed (we’ll explain more over the next few pages). Overclocking raises the next issue: how can you keep your Pi from overheating? The solution is to add a heatsink. You can purchase these for as little as £1 each from the likes of Pimoroni, but choose carefully:…

The ultimate desktop Pi

A true desktop Pi

If you want your Pi to form the heart of an all-in-one device, then visit www.pi-top.com to learn more about the Pi-topCEED, a desktop-friendly chassis with built-in 14-inch HD screen (1,366x768 resolution) and space behind for your Raspberry Pi (you can purchase it with or without a Pi 3). Fitting is incredibly easy – remove the front panel from beneath the display to reveal a generous space for your Pi and any add-on boards you want to include. Hook up the Pi to the HDMI cable, place it on the mag rail and slide it to the end, where it clips securely into place. HATs and other add-ons are easy to install too – you’ll need to purchase a pi-topPROTO accessory, which plugs into the mag rail and slides into…

A true desktop Pi

Boost performance

You’ve purchased your kit and you’re ready to build your ultimate desktop system. First things first: which distro will you choose? The obvious one is the default Raspberry Pi operating system Raspbian, but if you’re put off by its rather basic interface, then Ubuntu Mate should appeal. It provides a slicker, more desktop-like environment, but isn’t as well supported and there’s a performance price to pay for those bells and whistles – a slight tradeoff between desktop-like appearance and desktop-like performance – although you’re less likely to feel the pain with the Pi 3. If Ubuntu Mate sounds like it could be your kind of thing, check out the Run Ubuntu from USB box over the page. Boot into Raspbian from USB Instructions for preparing a Pi 3 for booting…

Boost performance

Run Ubuntu Mate from USB

If you want to run Ubuntu Mate from your USB drive, then you will need to follow a different procedure. The step-by-step guide reveals the prerequisites— you basically copy the Ubuntu Mate installer to your USB drive and copy the boot partition to a freshly formatted micro SD card for the initial installation. All being well, you should be able to boot from your micro SD card, which then switches to the USB drive to complete the installation. Once you’re logged in properly, open a Terminal window and type the following command: Type p and press Enter to make a note of where block sda2 starts (typically it’s 133120). Now type d and hit Enter, then choose 2 to delete the second partition. Press n and hit Enter to create…

Run Ubuntu Mate from USB

The ultimate portable Pi

The Pi’s small size and modest power demands make it the perfect candidate for use as a portable device, and thanks to the range of cases, displays and battery power options out there, you can configure it just about any which way you choose. We’ve decided to build our ultimate portable Pi around the official 7-inch touchscreen, but see the box below for alternatives you might want to consider. The official touchscreen costs around £55 from any reputable Pi outlet. You’ll also need to buy a suitable stand and case to attach your Pi to. There are plenty of options; we’ve plumped for the clever SmartiPi Touch case (£20, www.modmypi.com). The touchscreen fits snugly inside, secured by four screws, and there’s a compartment on the back for your Pi too,…

The ultimate portable Pi

Alternative form-factors

You don’t need to build a portable Pi around the official 7-inch touchscreen. If you’ve got £225 to spare, you can purchase the Pi-Top, a full laptop chassis with keyboard, 13.3-inch HD screen and smart battery offering up to 10 hours of life – see www.pi- top.com/product/pi-top. Or you could go to the opposite extreme and experiment with a 3.5-inch resistive touchscreen. For a guide to building your own Nintendo DS sized computer with 3.5- inch display and keyboard, follow Chris Robinson’s guide at https://youtu.be/ NMkhRK2lV0E – it’ll cost you under £100, but you’ll need to be a bit of a whizz with a hacksaw blade and glue gun as well as a soldering iron. A simpler – and cheaper – way to add a 3.5-inch display to your Pi…

Add right-click to the touchscreen

The touchscreen works well as a mouse substitute, but it lacks right-click support. The solution given on the Raspberry Pi website works only in Wheezy, but a better solution exists in the form of twofing, which allows you to generate a right-click by tapping the screen using two fingers. First, go to http://plippo.de/p/twofing for the basic instructions on downloading and compiling the package. Before rebooting as instructed, however, you need to perform some additional steps. First, create a.rules file: Add the following line, save and exit: KERNEL=="event*",ATTRS{name}==" FT5406 memory based driver",SYMLINK+ ="twofingtouch",RUN+="/bin/chmod a+r / dev/twofingtouch" If successful, this should launch the calibration screen. Press Ctrl+c to exit, then type twofing and hit Enter to launch it. Close the Terminal window and experiment with tapping the screen with two fingers and…

Add right-click to the touchscreen

The ultimate media Pi

There’s one thing the Pi is brilliant at, and that’s media. Whether you’re looking for an audiophile-friendly music player, a simple set-top box for playing media through your TV, or a full-blown media server for accessing your digital media from anywhere, there’s a Pi capable of delivering what you want. In this section, we’re going to focus our efforts on creating a Pi media server, which will allow you to share all your video, music and photos with your other devices, both at home and further afield. For the purposes of this project, we’ll focus on the Raspberry Pi 3, largely because it delivers enough oomph to run a media server comfortably. But there are other benefits too – the Wi-Fi, in case you don’t want to site it next…

The ultimate media Pi

Audiophile-friendly music

Imagine an inexpensive, pocket-sized audio player delivering superb quality digital sound through your home stereo or even a pair of headphones. No, we’re not talking about your smartphone or tablet, but a standalone audio player streaming music from Spotify, SoundCloud, Google Music, web radio or local music files. That’s the thought behind Pi MusicBox, a Pi-based project. You’ll find all the details and the required software to download at the website, www.pimusicbox.com. We paired a Pi Zero with the superlative Pi-DAC Zero (from £12, www.iqaudio.co.uk) and the Pi MusicBox distro to deliver a headless audio player based on Mopidy. Find the project at www.mopidy.com. If you’d like to build a standalone audio receiver, then you can pair your Model A/B Pi with the Pi- DigiAMP+ (£55), power adapter (£22) and…

Build a Pi Zero streaming stick

If you want to build a Raspberry Pi-powered media centre you can tuck behind the TV, you can pair a Pi Zero with the OSMC (www.osmc.tv) distro, which offers an optimised version of Kodi for lower-end machines. The initial setup requires access to a wireless hub to give you a wireless connection and USB keyboard/mouse for the initial configuration. (We suggest the Broadcom Adaptor, which provides a two-port hub and Wi-Fi from a single plug. Get it for £10 from most reputable Pi stores – see www.modmypi.com.) Once set up, you can remove the adaptor and replace it with a smaller Wi-Fi adaptor – we’re particularly fond of the Pi Zero Wi-Fi micro USB dongle from ModMyPi at £8, for example. While you can technically power your Pi Zero from…

The ultimate IoT Pi

We’re still waiting for a single Internet of Things standard to emerge, and chances are it never will. In the meantime, each time you purchase a piece of IoT kit from one manufacturer, be it a motion sensor, security camera or smart lighting, you’re gambling that it will not only work with your current ecosystem but also prove flexible enough to work with others should the horse you’re currently backing fall out of favour. And let’s not talk about updates that break compatibility with older devices, eh SmartThings? Services like https://ifttt.com go a long way to helping bridge the digital divide between devices, but why rely on a manufacturer’s piece of expensive kit when you can custom-build your own versatile IoT gadgets using a Pi or Pi Zero? In this…

The ultimate IoT Pi

Build your own software projects

Okay, so you’ve set up your hardware, but how do you go about integrating these new devices into your IoT infrastructure? While extensively documented and supported, your hardware usually requires some Python programming skills to make use of its extensive libraries. If you’re just starting out with programming or feel that you want more flexibility in this kind of project, you should take a look at the open-source Wyliodrin IDE. Wyliodrin is a web-based platform that tries to simplify the programming process by supporting a wide range of languages in a platform-agnostic way to let you put your projects together using a more user-friendly building-block approach called “Visual Programming” while the code is written for you in the background. You’ll need to start by signing up for a free account…

Build your own software projects

Raspberry Pi tablet

Like it? Stefan has two projects on the go: a Pi-based music synthesiser (built into the top of his Hammond organ); he’s also working on improving the aerodynamics of his car for better fuel efficiency and says he’ll “probably end up putting a Pi in there as well…” Further reading Stefan’s recent projects include customised mechanical wristwatches, a remake of an analogue music circuit from the 1970s for an alarm clock and a complete rebuild of the vacuum tube (valve) amplifier in his 1962 Hammond organ. Read more at www.stefanv.com. With this project, Stefan Vorkoetter takes the term ‘Pi hack’ and applies it quite literally to hacking down a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B to the bare essentials required for the job, combining it with a 7-inch display to create…

Raspberry Pi tablet

Use Python to code new creations in Minecraft

What you’ll need ■ Minecraft http://www.mojang.com/games ■ Python https://www.python.org ■ McPiFoMo http://rogerthat.co.uk/McPiFoMo.rar Sometimes, Minecraft can seem far more than just a game. It’s an incredibly creative tool and with the use of Redstone and Command Blocks you can produce some amazing worlds. We’re taking things a step further by enabling you to plug Python code directly into Minecraft. What you do with it is completely up to your imagination! MCPiPy was developed by ‘fleap’ and ‘bluepillRabbit’ of https://mcpipy.wordpress.com, to connect MineCraft Pi Edition with Python on the Raspberry Pi, using open APIs. However, with the use of Forge we have put together a package that enables the use of Python in retail Minecraft. We’re using Raspberry Jam developed by Alexander Pruss, a Forge mod for Minecraft which implements most of…

Use Python to code new creations in Minecraft

Hack Minecraft on a friend’s Raspberry Pi over a network

Resources McPiFoMo http://rogerthat.co.uk/McPiFoMo.rar Block IDs: http://bit.ly/ MC-BlockIDs Angry IP Scanner http://angryip.org/ download/ We will create a Python script that connects directly to a Minecraft game running on another Raspberry Pi, which will enable us to have some fun with their game world. We’ll have the ability to manipulate the character, the environment, and place blocks, as we’ve done in the previous tutorials, but this time we’re working on someone else’s game. We’ll be able to have pranks galore, but it should be mentioned that this should not be done without prior permission of the third party. This tutorial is written under the assumption that you’re running Minecraft Pi Edition on a Raspberry Pi. No additional software is required. If you’d like to run this tutorial on your own flavour of…

Hack Minecraft on a friend’s Raspberry Pi over a network

Control the player and environment in Minecraft

What you’ll need Minecraft https://www.mojang.com/games Python https://www.python.org McPiFoMo http://rogerthat.co.uk/McPiFoMo.rar Minecraft Turtle http://bit.ly/MinecraftTurtle Block IDs http://bit.ly/minecraft_id_links Hooking directly into Minecraft with Python gives us many advantages, but rather than building by hand, we can use programming techniques such as loops to simplify much of the building process. In this tutorial, we will manipulate the player character’s position and the blocks around them. We use simple lines of code to replicate blocks in rows and columns, to build entire rooms out of thin air. We also teleport Steve or Alex around your world at the drop of a hat. Combining these two functions enables us to have a little fun with TNT to create our own bomber-man. As a prerequisite, we strongly recommend that you download and install McPiFoMo. McPiFoMo includes MCPiPy…

Control the player and environment in Minecraft

Use Python code to create pixel art in Minecraft

Resources Minecraft www.mojang.com/ games/ Wireshark www.wireshark.org Python www.python.org McPiFoMo http://rogerthat.co.uk/McPiFoMo.rar Block IDs http://minecraft-ids.grahamedgecombe.com Creating pixel art in Minecraft can be quite therapeutic, but placing the blocks down one-by-one can also be incredibly time-consuming. However, by using Python and a handy little ‘for’ loop or two, we can create scripts to automatically build prefabricated pixel art directly into our Minecraft worlds. If you’re using Minecraft Pi edition on a Raspberry Pi, no additional software is necessary. We’ve also put together a number of tools to ensure this hack works on Linux, with a retail version of Minecraft. Therefore as a prerequisite, we strongly recommend that you install McPiFoMo. McPiFoMo includes MCPiPy by ‘fleap’ and ‘bluepillRabbit’ of MCPiPy.com, and Raspberry Jam developed by Alexander Pruss. In this tutorial we’re going to use…

Use Python code to create pixel art in Minecraft

Draw 3D text in Minecraft using Python code

What you’ll need Minecraft www.mojang.com/games Python www.python.org McPiFoMo http://rogerthat.co.uk/McPiFoMo.rar Minecraft Turtle http://bit.ly/MinecraftTurtle Minecraft’s ‘Creative Mode’ is indeed a great mode to get creative with, but it’s a time-consuming job placing blocks down into your world one-by-one. That’s why we put together a package which incorporates a range of modifications that enable us to execute Python scripts directly into a Minecraft world. McPiFoMo includes MCPiPy by ‘fleap’ and ‘bluepillRabbit’ of https://mcpipy.wordpress.com, and the Raspberry Jam Mod, developed by Alexander Pruss. We’ll also be using Minecraft Turtle, which was put together by Martin O’Hanlon of http://stuffaboutcode.com. That’s a lot of mods, but together they allow us to do with Minecraft on Linux what would usually have only been possible with the Raspberry Pi edition of Minecraft. As a prerequisite, we strongly recommend…

Draw 3D text in Minecraft using Python code

Automate your indoor garden

Like it? John can boast a pretty incredible portfolio of work, much of which he goes into detail in over on his site at switchdoc.com. Make sure you take a look at the site’s tutorial section, which is packed with tips and tricks for beginner and advanced Pi projects alike. Further reading The entire process of the SmartPlantPi is fairly complex, and if our brief overview here isn’t enough, then make sure you head across to the switchdoc.com website where a full rundown is available. We’ve seen some pretty unique projects using the Pi, but the SmartPlant is entirely different. How did the concept come about? The original SmartPlantPi idea came from where many good ideas come from: a discussion in a local pub. We were brainstorming about what we…

Automate your indoor garden

Get the new Pixel desktop

What you’ll need Raspberry Pi (Ideally a Pi 2 or 3 if you want to use Chromium for streaming video) If installing from Raspbian from scratch, an 8GB Micro SD card Access to a computer for connecting via SSH and/or to install Raspbian Jessie with Pixel Pixel (Pi Improved Xwindows Environment, Lightweight), is the latest iteration of the Raspbian desktop. The major changes are apparent the first time you boot up – the multitude of boot messages has been replaced with a simple splash screen with the release number. There are now 16 stunning desktop background images to choose from thanks to Pi Foundation developer Greg Annandale. The icons on the file manager, task bar and menu now have a crisp, professional appearance. Menus are also cleaner and more readable…

Get the new Pixel desktop

Read and return the orientation of an object

What you’ll need Raspberry Pi Four jumper jerky wires (female to female) Design Spark tilt switch GPIO pin numbering GPIO pins are a physical interface between the Pi and the outside world. At the simplest level, you can think of them as switches that you can turn on or off. You can also program your Raspberry Pi to turn them on or off (output). The GPIO. BCM option means that you are referring to the pins by the Broadcom SOC channel number. If you start counting the pins this is the physical pin number. The GPIO.BOARD option specifies that you are referring to the pins by the plug number, i.e. the numbers printed on the board. A tilt switch is a component capable of sensing a change in orientation in…

Read and return the orientation of an object

Make Raspberry Pi-based warrant canary

What you’ll need ■ Suitable for all models of Raspberry Pi The warrant canary borrows its name from the unfortunate bird that was taken down mine shafts. It’s a reaction against secret requests to obtain customer’s personal data. For example, when a court order is served on a business, its owners are forbidden from alerting users that their data has been compromised. Warrant canaries cleverly slalom around this legal hurdle through regularly making a statement that they have not been subject to such a request. If they switch off their warrant canary, as Reddit did in March 2016, users will know that an external agency also has access to the data a company stores about them. The legal ramifications of this are complex and depend on where you are in…

Make Raspberry Pi-based warrant canary

20 most common Raspberry Pi issues

The Raspberry Pi is elegant in its simplicity. This may explain why in a blog post in 2013 the Raspberry Pi Foundation revealed that only 0.02 percent of Pis are returned as defective. Of these around half were actually experiencing an issue that could easily be solved – so easily in fact that 10 year old Jessica, the daughter of Director of Software Engineering Gordon Hollingworth, was able to separate the good Pi units from the genuinely faulty ones. This being the case, if you are experiencing issues with your Pi, please don’t throw it away in frustration or send it back with an irate letter. It’s very likely that your issue can be solved (if not by a 10-year-old, then using a remedy found by one of the other…

20 most common Raspberry Pi issues

Fruit-ripening detector

Like it? While the detector could be a gamechanger in its field, the work that Concrete Jungle for their local community deserves to be recognised. You can check out what they do, and how to get involved from the comfort of your armchair over at: www.concretejungle.org Further reading It’s safe to say that Craig has worked on several iterations of the ripening detector – six in fact! He’s been kind enough to detail the project over on: https://hackaday. io/project/16809. This project stems from Concrete Jungle, could you give us an insight into what you guys do? Concrete Jungle is an Atlanta-based non-profit organisation that primarily picks urban fruit trees and donates it to local homeless shelters and food banks. We also have a farm in south Atlanta where everything we…

Fruit-ripening detector

Make a Bitcoin cold store

What you’ll need ■ Suitable for all models of Pi (Pi Zero recommended). For security reasons, you need a dedicated Pi for this project. As you’re probably aware, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin can be used to make anonymous and irreversible online payments, similar to hard cash. Bitcoin is a huge leap forward for privacy-minded people, but the fact that it’s a digital currency means that hackers often target owners of Bitcoin software wallets. In this tutorial, we’ll explore a solution using the lightweight Bitcoin Wallet Electrum on the Raspberry Pi. The Pi will host a ‘cold’ wallet which is kept offline at all times. You’ll also set up an online ‘watching’ wallet on another computer so you can see payments as they come in. Payments are only sent by generating a…

Make a Bitcoin cold store

Get hands on with the Pimoroni Blinkt!

Pimoroni has created an awesome ‘super-bright RGB LED indicator’ that is ideal for adding visual notifications to your Raspberry Pi without breaking the bank! The Blinkt! offers eight APA102 pixels in the smallest (and cheapest) form factor to plug straight into your Raspberry Pi 3/2/B+/A+/Zero. This tutorial walks you through how to install the Blinkt! and the required Python libraries and modules. Next, create and try out some simple code to control the lights and change the colours and the brightness of the LEDs. Finally, combine these skills together to code an LED colour generator that selects a random LED and a random RGB colour value for the range of eight lights. This creates a psychedelic disco-light setup. What you’ll need ■ Pimoroni Blinkt! 01 Install the Blinkt! The guys…

Get hands on with the Pimoroni Blinkt!

Getting started with the Pimoroni Speaker pHAT

Resources Raspberry Pi Pimoroni Speaker pHAT http://bit.ly/Speaker-pHAT Hammer headers (optional) http://bit.ly/HammerHeaders The Raspberry Pi Zero is awesome. However, it lacks an ‘on the go’ audio solution. Worry no longer, as Pimoroni has created an ’80s-style boombox speaker known as the Speaker pHAT. It crams an I2S DAC and mono amplifier, a tiny 8 2W speaker and a 10 LED bar graph onto one teeny little pHAT. A simple solution to add audio to your Pi, it is compatible with all models. Now you can integrate music, notifications, speech and sound into all your projects. It comes as a complete kit, and this tutorial walks you through how to set up and prepare the hardware; the installation of the software; how to alter and adjust the volume setting; and finally, for…

Getting started with the Pimoroni Speaker pHAT

Steampunk Laptop

Like it? As mentioned in the interview, this is just one of many projects that Frazelle has undertaken using the Pi, including one that turns an ornate mirror into a smart device using the magicmirror2 platform (https:// magicmirror. builders), which includes facial recognition, traffic and weather information. Further reading We had to reduce the list of components as there are so many, but Frazelle details the whole build process at http://bit.ly/ SteamPunkLaptop. Many of his other projects are frankly breathtaking and the Legend of Zelda bartop arcade cabinet is a particular labour of love: http://bit.ly/ ZeldaArcade Cabinet. Where did the idea for the steampunk laptop come from? I hear it was gift for your girlfriend. For our first ever Christmas I made her an ornate mirror with the magic mirror…

Steampunk Laptop

Encrypt your Raspberry Pi home folder

What you’ll need ? This tutorial is compatible with all models of Pi running Raspbian Jessie With the advent of the dazzling Pixel desktop on the Pi, with its glitzy icons and crisp windows, some readers may be considering using a Pi as their home computer. This however is not especially secure given that the Pi automatically logs in the default user without requiring a password. Even if the password is required, anyone can mount the SD card to view your documents, pictures, videos and other data. 01 Back up your data If you have not done so already, log onto your Pi and transfer the contents of your Desktop, Documents, Pictures etc onto an external medium like a USB stick. This will make transferring your data to your encrypted…

Encrypt your Raspberry Pi home folder

Raspberry Pi air drum kit

Like it? David has been massively involved with the Pi community for a number of years, and we’ve featured several of his projects previously. We highly recommend you check out his Connect 4 robot, which was another novel way into integrating the Raspberry Pi into a different type of project: http://bit. ly/2fbsSnW Further reading While the air drum kit may be a niche project to undertake, David does explain that this is very much a beginner-friendly project to get started with. A visual look at the project can be found over at: http:// bit.ly/2gnkeEB, while all the necessary code can be yours from his official GitHub listing: http:// bit.ly/2gnll7b Where did the original idea for the drum kit stem from? What’s always interesting to me is where we find our…

Raspberry Pi air drum kit

Control lighting with the Pi and Amazon Echo

What you’ll need Github repository: https://github.com/ alexellis/motephat-alexa Pimoroni mote-phat and accessories (pimoroni.com) Soldering iron, flux and solder In 2016, Amazon brought the Echo (£150) and Echo Dot (£50) devices to the UK market, providing a voice assistant for your home. The Alexa service provides lots of built-in features such as radio and music streaming, creating and editing your shopping lists, weather updates and many other custom skills provided by third parties. Skill builders such as Uber and Capital One publish their skills for the general public, which means they go through a vetting process similar to that of the Apple App Store. For this tutorial, we will be creating an unpublished skill for our own Echo or Echo Dot to control the Pimoroni home lighting kit called Mote. Our skill…

Control lighting with the Pi and Amazon Echo

Like it? If you want to see how the ZeroBot’s hull and wheels were designed, you can download the 3D files from Fusion 360 (http://a360.co/2rV2NQo). For the STL files you’ll need to go to Thingiverse (http://bit.ly/Zerobot). Further reading Max undertook an extended internship, which sparked an interest in CAD design and you can see that on show at his blog. Head to http://coretechrobotics.blogspot.co.uk to see his cute Attiny Canbot and quadruped robot. For his latest botrelated exploits, follow him on https://hackaday. io/Max.K. What’s so great about reading about this project is how you often mention code you’re revisiting from previous projects and how each one builds on your past work and experiences. How long have you been into maker projects, particularly robots? I only really started to tinker with electronics…

Make a Raspberry Pi VPN Access Point

What you’ll need ? Raspberry Pi with Wi-Fi support ? Ethernet cable ? An active VPN subscription that supports OpenVPN ? Secondary device such as a laptop to test your AP works Anyone who has been abroad will know it’s a constant pain to have to deal with content that has been switched to the local language, not to mention certain states that censor some internet content. Fortunately there’s a way to evade these restrictions using the Raspberry Pi. In a few simple steps you can configure your Pi to generate its own wireless AP (Access Point) and keep it permanently connected to a VPN (Virtual Private Network) service. All you need to do when travelling is bring your Pi and connect it to a working router and you’ll have…

Make a Raspberry Pi VPN Access Point

Start programming using Scratch

There’s a wide range of programming languages that can be used with the Raspberry Pi, but Scratch is great for beginners, because it introduces many of the concepts of programming while being easy to use. It’s especially good for creating graphical programs such as games. You’ll find Scratch on the desktop in Raspbian, so there’s no need to install anything – just click on the icon to get started. (Many other operating systems for the Pi don’t support Scratch, although you can download Scratch for Windows, Mac or Linux at https://scratch.mit.edu. Our tutorials will be equally applicable whatever your platform.) The main window in Scratch is split into three sections: the bits you can use to make programs are on the left; you piece them together in the middle; and…

Start programming using Scratch

Variables and messages

Sooner or later, you’re going to want to get your program to remember something. It might be a number, a piece of text, or anything. You can do this using variables. These are little pieces of the computer’s memory that your program can place pieces of data in. In Step 5, we create a pair of these to store some numbers in, although we could also put text in them. Note that in some programming languages, you have to create different types of variables if you want to store all of the different types of data, but you don’t need to worry about that in Scratch. Once you’ve created a variable, you can use it in a few ways. First, you have to set it to be a particular value,…

Design a game using Scratch 2

The popularity of Scratch has soared since the Raspberry Pi was released. Children across the United Kingdom have started their coding journey using this effective tool. Why is it so popular? Scratch beautifully demonstrates the basics of Computer Science, loops, iteration, variables, arrays etc. But Scratch manages to keep all of these concepts relatively simple and easy for the user, typically a child, to use. When children first use Scratch, they simply treat it as a set of building blocks, connecting blocks together and seeing what they can create. But over time and with the help of the curriculum in our schools, children are learning key skills which can be applied to all languages, all thanks to Scratch. The Raspbian operating system, the de facto standard for all versions of…

Design a game using Scratch 2

Scratch 2 – take your projects anywhere

Scratch 2 is seen as a significant improvement over 1.4, largely thanks to being online. You don’t need to sign up for an account, but the benefits of doing so are that you can share your work with others, and you can remix their work to create your own. You can also build your own blocks, which can contain extra functionality, much the same as a function in Python or a macro in Office applications. Another big benefit of Scratch 2 is that you can access your projects from anywhere in the world using any computer. This enables children to work on their school projects at home, with no specialist software install, and it also ends “the dog ate my homework” scenarios. Children can share their projects in class blogs…

The top 20 Raspberry Pi apps

The Raspberry Pi is probably best known as a platform for programming and physical computing projects, but it’s also a fullyfunctional computer, and like desktop computers and modern mobile devices of all kinds, it has a wide range of apps available to expand its capabilities. What you install will of course depend on what you want to do with your Pi, but this is our pick of 20 apps that we love, and that all work on the Pi with a default Raspbian install. While the Raspberry Pi no longer has an online “App Store” – the Pi Store ceased operating in early 2015 – some handy programs come pre-installed and many more can be installed without much trouble. Click Applications > Preferences > Add/ Remove Software to launch Raspbian’s…

The top 20 Raspberry Pi apps

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