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42 Articles

Welcome to Raspberry Pi Tips, Tricks & Hacks

Imagine, if back in 1999, someone came up to you and told you that in 15 years, you’d be able to carry a customisable computer that could play games, control robots, check the temperature in real time, and be used as a remote control in your pocket. Imagine they said that in 16 years, you could buy this computer for under a tenner. You would call them mad, wouldn’t you? Well, that madness has become a reality, ever since the Raspberry Pi took the tech world by storm in 2012. Whether you’re a skilled programmer or a hobbyist, or even a cosplayer hoping to add an electronic wearable to your costume, there is a Pi project for everyone, regardless of skill level or budget. In this new volume of Raspberry…

Welcome to Raspberry Pi Tips, Tricks & Hacks

25 MAKER PROJECTS FOR PI 3

What are the big changes? A lot of the Raspberry Pi 3 is the same as the Raspberry Pi 2. Our strategy for the Pis from the B+ has been to try and keep the same form factor. The B+ was really the first Pi that I worked on when I came to Raspberry Pi in 2013, and the idea was that we’ve got this nice form factor and we want to keep it, so to build the Pi 3 I took the Pi 2 design and literally just added the extra stuff. So, we’ve got the new processor courtesy of Broadcom – they’ve done a nice uplift. It’s similar to the BCM2836; the Cortex A7 was taken out and the A53s were put in, and everything else has actually…

25 MAKER PROJECTS FOR PI 3

Set up your Pi Zero

So you’ve picked up one of the tiny yet powerful Zeros, but before the coding fun can begin, you need to get more familiar with it. Don’t worry; we’ll walk you through the Raspberry Pi Zero, the required cables, how to prepare a NOOBS SD card, and how to solder the GPIO header onto the Pi. Once the Pi is working and booted we’ll show you how to get it working on WiFithrough the Raspbian user interface. You’ll need a USB hub for this, or even just to use a keyboard and mouse together. We’ll also show you how to prepare a Raspbian SD card for headless use (either VNC or SSH) with only a WiFi adapter or USBtoEthernet adaptor. 01 Raspberry Pi Zero Cable Overview The Raspberry Pi Zero…

Set up your Pi Zero

DEVELOP WITH PYTHON

System administration Get the most out of Python in handling all of the day-to-day upkeep that keeps your system healthy System administration tasks are some of the most annoying things that you need to deal with when you have to maintain your own system. Because of this, system administrators have constantly been trying to find ways to automate these types of tasks to maximise their time. They started with basic shell scripts, and then moved on to various scripting languages. For a long time, Perl had been the language of choice for developing these types of maintenance tools. However, Python is now growing in popularity as the language to use. It has reached the point where most Linux distributions have a Python interpreter included in order to run system scripts,…

DEVELOP WITH PYTHON

Get the new Pixel desktop

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 as application icons no longer appear by default. The rather clunky windows we formerly knew in Raspbian have now been replaced with rounded corners and a modified title bar. The infinality patchset actually also makes for much cleaner font rendering. Beneath the hood, RealVNC Server is…

Get the new Pixel desktop

Multitasking with your Pi

Why Python? It’s the official language of the Raspberry Pi. Read the docs at python,org/doc. The majority of programmers will learn single-threaded programming as their first computational model. The basic idea is that instructions for the computer are processed sequentially, one after the other. This works well enough in most situations, but you will reach a point where you need to start multitasking. The classical situation for writing multithreaded applications is to have them run on a multi-processor machine of some persuasion. In these cases, you would have some heavy, compute-bound process running on each processor. Since your Raspberry Pi is not a huge 16-core desktop machine, you might be under the assumption that you can’t take advantage of using multiple threads of execution. This isn’t true, though. There are…

Multitasking with your Pi

Get alerts with the Raspberry Pi baby monitor

While you’re settling down to enjoy your latest boxset, there’s always that nagging feeling at the back of your mind – is the baby asleep, or crying down the house? Surround sound tends to get in the way, which means we need to rely on baby monitors. While audio monitors are useful, the trend these days is more towards video baby monitors, in particular those that display footage on an app or by opening an IP address in a mobile browser. Throw in some motion detection and alert software, and you’ve got an incredibly useful tool – which, you won’t be surprised to learn, the Raspberry Pi can do for a fraction of the cost. All you’ll need is a Raspberry Pi (the newer the better), and a USB webcam…

Get alerts with the Raspberry Pi baby monitor

Run RISC OS on your Raspberry Pi

Get started with BASIC Whether you remember BBC BASIC or it’s completely new to you, you’ll have it at your fingertips in RISC OS. To open a command line, click Ctrl+F12, then type BASIC and enter. You are then ready to enter a basic program: Esc will stop this routine. Dedicated programming editors are available for BBC BASIC, although you can develop code with WIMP and C too. You’re happy using Raspbian to get the most from your Raspberry Pi. You might have flirted with the idea of Ubuntu or Arch Linux, but never seen the point. After all, when it comes to maximising what you can do with the Pi, the official distro has everything you need, right? But, what about trying a non-Linux operating system? The Cambridge-developed RISC…

Run RISC OS on your Raspberry Pi

Master essential Sense HAT skills

In 2015, two Raspberry Pi computers were each fitted with an Astro Pi, which is an add-on board boasting an array of sensors and an 8x8 LED matrix. These were flown to the ISS and delivered to Major Tim Peake with a selection of school children’s experiments. Eventually, the Astro Pi was released for sale to the public as the rebranded ‘Sense HAT’. This consists of exactly the same hardware and sensors set found on the Astro Pi but with a new ‘Sense HAT’ API. The first part of this two-part tutorial introduces you to the Sense HAT hardware and walks you through the skills required to create a Sense HAT version of the updated classic Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock game. These skills also stand alone and you can…

Master essential Sense HAT skills

Master essential Sense HAT skills: Part 2

You will probably have played Rock, Paper, Scissors in real life. The issue with this version is that there are only three possible outcomes other than a tie. Sam Kass and Karen Bryla invented an alternative version which adds “Spock” and “lizard”. “Spock” is signified with the Star Trek Vulcan hand sign, while “lizard” is shown by forming the hand into a mouth. Spock smashes scissors and vaporises rock; he is poisoned by lizard and is disproved by paper. Lizard poisons Spock and eats paper; it is crushed by rock and decapitated by scissors. This tutorial walks you through creating your own SenseHAT version of the game. 01 How RPSLS works with the Sense HAT When you complete this tutorial you will have a folder which contains five 8 x…

Master essential Sense HAT skills: Part 2

Environmental science with the Sensly HAT

The Sensly is a smart module attached to the Raspberry Pi. It has its own microprocessor that can handle analog data and handle sampling from various sensors without the need to waste your Raspberry Pi’s processing power. There are three different gas sensors attached to the board, allowing you to sense a multitude of gases, as well as humidity and temperature sensors. Plus, this Raspberry Pi HAT can be easily extended with its array of analog ports and an I2C interface. In keeping with the Raspberry Pi way of doing things, the module also provides a Python API that does all of the hard work for you. All of the maths, calibration and error correction is handled by the API itself, allowing you to play around with meaningful data immediately.…

Environmental science with the Sensly HAT

Code a simple synthesiser

We are going to take you through the basics of wavetable synthesis theory and use that knowledge to create a realtime synthesiser in Python. At the moment, it is controlled by the computer keyboard, but it could easily be adapted to accept a MIDI keyboard as input. The Python implementation of such a synthesiser turns out to be too slow for polyphonic sound (ie playing multiple notes at the same time) so we’ll use Cython, which compiles Python to C so that you can then compile it to native machine code to improve the performance. The end result is polyphony of three notes, so this is not intended for use as a serious synthesiser. Instead, this tutorial will enable you to become familiar with synthesis concepts in a comfortable language:…

Code a simple synthesiser

Networked sensor display with Pimoroni Scroll pHAT

We are going to create a networked sensor display with the Pimoroni scrollphat. We’ll take a look at the hardware, what’s included and how to install the required Python libraries. Then we will tour the library’s source code and code some examples that have been contributed by the open-source community through GitHub. Once we are familiar with the library, we will go on to set up our chosen sensor on the first Raspberry Pi and connect the screen to our Pi Zero. We’ll learn about how to use Redis (an open-source pub-sub noSQL database). Redis is our connective tissue, publishing events that our Zero will subscribe to and then display on the Scroll pHAT. This saves on the complexity of implementing a web-server or going even lower level with sockets.…

Networked sensor display with Pimoroni Scroll pHAT

Create your own Xbox Zero arcade

The Raspberry Pi Zero is tiny, ridiculously tiny. It’s a wonderful, impressive piece of tech, but we can’t help wondering – because we’re terribly serious adults, honestly – where can we stuff the Zero for maximum fun? It’s small enough to be hidden in a variety of household objects in order to enhance their capabilities. Whatever you can find to fit it in, you can turn into some kind of smart machine. Okay, wiring it in to your vacuum cleaner in the hope of making an ersatz Roomba is probably a little tricky – but there are all sorts of electronic gadgets lying around your home which can be brought back to life with a little bit of effort. Take old game controllers. If you’re anything like us you’ve probably…

Create your own Xbox Zero arcade

Installing and configuring the RetroPie emulator

Right, you’ve got your Pi safely ensconced in a controller – all you need now are some videogames to play! We’re going to be using the RetroPie emulator. By the end of this tutorial, you’ll be able to play games directly from your Raspberry Pi, provided that you legally own the ROM files. It’s as easy as installing the software onto your SD card and then copying across any games that you want to play. If you’ve already got Raspian installed on your Pi, you can install RetroPie alongside it – or you can dedicate the whole disk to the software. 01 Install RetroPie inside Raspbian If you’ve already started using your Pi and want to add RetroPie to it, you’ll need to install the software from GitHub. The latest…

Installing and configuring the RetroPie emulator

Make an interactive, Zero-powered wearable

Wearable tech is an ever-growing industry, bursting with smart watches, fitness gadgets and pulse-rate necklaces. For many, this technology is nothing new; enthusiasts have long created their own wearable versions. Clothes that light up on contact, masks that change voices and weapons that glow! In this tutorial you will use your old Christmas LED lights, Python and the Pi Zero to modify a hat that lights up when you receive a specific tweet from your timeline. The Pi Zero is the perfect size and can be embedded into the clothing. You can customise the project for your own wearable tech, perhaps shoes that light up or a pair of gloves or a jumper that responds to the weather. 01 Sign up for Twitter API keys To interact with Twitter, you…

Make an interactive, Zero-powered wearable

Build a Raspberry Pi Minecraft console

Minecraft means m any things to m any p eople, and to Raspberry Pi users it’s supposed to mean education. N ot e veryone k nows, t hough, t hat you can still have fun and play Minecraft as you normally would. Using Raspberry Pi, it is also the cheapest way to get a fully-functional version of Minecraft up onto your TV. However, in its normal state, just being on a TV isn’t the end of it. Using all the features and functions of the Pi, we can take it to a state more fitting of a TV by making it into a hackable, moddable Minecraft console. In this tutorial, we will show you how to set it up in terms of both software and hardware, how to add a…

Build a Raspberry Pi Minecraft console

Mod your Minecraft

We program Minecraft to react in python using the API that comes with Minecraft: Pi Edition – it’s what we moved to the home folder earlier on. Now’s a good time to test it – we can do this remotely via SSH. Just cd into the Minecraft folder in the home directory we made, and use nano test.py to create our test file. Add the following: “Hello, Minecraft!” should pop up on-screen. The code imports the Minecraft function from the files we moved earlier, which allows us to actually use Python to interact with Minecraft, along with the various other functions and modules imported. We then create the mc instance that will allow us to actually post to Minecraft using the postToChat function. There are many ways you can interact…

Mod your Minecraft

Create a Minecraft Minesweeper game

You may remember or have even played the classic Minesweeper P C g ame t hat o riginally d ates b ack t o t he 60s. Over the years it has been bundled with most operating systems, appeared on mobile phones, and even featured as a mini-game variation on Super Mario Bros. This project will walk you through how to create a simple version in Minecraft: it’s Minecraft Minesweeper! You will code a program that sets out an arena of blocks and turns one of these blocks into a mine. To play the game, guide your player around the board. Each time you stand on a block you turn it to gold and collect points, but watch out for the mine as it will end the game and cover…

Create a Minecraft Minesweeper game

Control lights with your Pi

The folks at Energenie have created some genius plug sockets that can be turned on and off via your Raspberry Pi. You can buy a starter kit which includes the RF transmitter add-on board and two sockets to get you started. The add-on board connects directly to the GPIO pins and is controlled with a Python library. Once everything is installed and set up, your Raspberry Pi can be used with the Pi-mote to control up to four Energenie sockets using a simple program. This tutorial covers how to set up the software, the sockets and how to adapt the program to run on your mobile device. 01 Set up To get started, boot up your Raspberry Pi and load the LX Terminal, then update your software by typing: Depending…

Control lights with your Pi

Stream internet TV to your Raspberry Pi

Finding the content you’re interested in viewing can take a while. W hether y ou’re l ooking f or i nternet T V s tations, video podcasts, audio podcasts or shows syndicated online, taking the time to find and download them can be slow going, particularly if you have a busy lifestyle. You might even have no time to watch after you’ve waited for the download. Thanks to the Miro media management software, we can automate all of this, and with the software running on a Raspberry Pi, you can easily build a compact system for downloading and playing back shows that you have an interest in. We’re talking targeted TV on demand, which makes this project ideal for staying up to date with particular news and trends on a…

Stream internet TV to your Raspberry Pi

Underwater Pi drone

What you’ll needs ■ Raspberry Pi B+ ■ Tilt, roll, pressure and temperature sensors ■ 3D-printed camera tilt and propellers ■ Camera module ■ USB joystick control ■ Ethernet cable Why did you decide to build an ROV (remotely operated vehicle)? When I was a kid I frequently built RC models; sailing boats and speedboats. While I owned a fantastic RC glider and dreamed of having my own RC submarine someday, my neighbour at the time had an RC submarine and discouraged me from building one by saying this thing always had trouble with its electronics and leakage. Besides, almost all waters are murky in our area! Around the end of 2014, I saw a National Geographic e pisode a bout t he s alvage of the Costa Concordia and…

Underwater Pi drone

Anonymise your web traffic with a Pi Tor router

Are you concerned about your online privacy? Suspect that the NSA or GCHQ are tracking you online? Or are you simply anxious about advertising networks targeting their ads at you? If this is the case, or you’re simply on the lookout for a new project, then setting your Raspberry Pi up as an anonymisings Tor wireless access point is a good way to save time and effort setting up Tor on all of your PCs and mobile devices. If you’re unaware, Tor is free software that enables anonymity online and routes internet traffic through a worldwide anonymising network of over 7000 relays. By doing this, your location and website use can be concealed from techniques such as traffic analysis and network surveillance. This is all about protecting your privacy by…

Anonymise your web traffic with a Pi Tor router

Create your own circuit diagrams with Fritzing

Putting circuits together can be tricky, even for experts. Fortunately, various notations exist that make it easier to work out just where wires, components and power sources are connected. But rather than jot these details down with a pencil and paper, you might prefer to bring an element of realism to the illustration. This is particularly useful for beginners, and if you’re demonstrating a breadboard-mounted circuit with an Arduino, for instance, you might wish to clearly and accurately illustrate the precise positions of each component and wire. This is where Fritzing comes in. You’ve probably seen illustrations of circuits in the pages of Linux User & Developer over the years, and with Fritzing you too can put together circuit illustrations, simply by dragging and dropping the categorised components into place,…

Create your own circuit diagrams with Fritzing

Make a Pi 2 desktop PC

The Raspberry Pi 2’s increased power over its predecessor is well-documented by now. More CPU cores and more RAM making it six times faster is an impressive number, and you can see the actual changes that it makes to the experience. This power actually enables you to conduct a very simple project that was just out of reach for the original Raspberry Pi: a Raspberry Pi desktop PC. All the components for it were available, but the Pi was just a little too slow to properly give a fluid desktop experience. Now with the improved resources, many of the restrictions are gone – enough of them to be able to build a Pi desktop. So grab a Pi 2 and we’ll get started. 01 Get Raspbian We will be using…

Make a Pi 2 desktop PC

Set up a multi-room sound system

The possibilities of the Raspberry Pi are seemingly endless – but it especially lends itself to entertainment. In this tutorial we are going to use Logitech’s Squeezebox Media Server and the squeezelite client to create a multi-room audio system. The media server can stream audio to each squeezelite client and synchronise the playback between multiple clients if desired. Logitech opensourced the Squeezebox software after officially discontinuing the hardware line. The media server can be controlled from a web interface or various smartphone applications. Unfortunately, the Spotify plugin (specifically the thirdparty Spotify plugin by Triode) was partially broken at the time of writing. Search isn’t working, likely because the Spotify API has been updated since the plugin was last updated. Instead, the server can be pointed at a music directory…

Set up a multi-room sound system

Automate Logitech Media Server

There is a Python library for Logitech Media Server (https://github.com/jinglemansweep/PyLMS), which allows you to automate various tasks. Check out the code below to write an application that pings your phone and pauses the players once your phone drops off the wireless network (indicating that you’ve left the house). Once you return, the application can press play. Start your script It makes the most sense to set your script up on the server: Finally, make the script start at boot: Then enable the service and reboot to test it: Cost of implementation Assuming you already have an old Pi or two lying around, this can be a fairly cheap project – there are plenty of good quality class T speaker amps around that you can get for £20 or so. Just…

Automate Logitech Media Server

50 WAYS TO HACK YOUR RASPBERRY PI

So you have a Raspberry Pi and have now mastered the basics of setting it up, accessing the Desktop, getting online and loading the various pre-installed software. This tutorial is packed full of 50 skills, codes and hacks to try on your Pi, which span two pieces of software and one additional piece of hardware. First up is the Raspberry Pi SenseHAT which was initially sent to the ISS station to run code and experiments. This addon board will cost you around £26.50 ($57.99 from Amazon in the US) and provides a wide array of sensors, including a temperature sensor and an LED matrix. Get to grips with the essential code in order to program it and then you can create your very own real time humidity sensor and display.…

50 WAYS TO HACK YOUR RASPBERRY PI

Five essentials before you start

01 Update your Pi Before you start a project or hack, ensure your Pi software and operating system are up to date. Open the LX terminal, type: 02 Installing and deleting software When online your Raspberry Pi can access a wide range of software and programs. Many of these are stored in a publicly maintained repository. If you know the name of the software you require, for example, the chrome browser, then type: To delete unwanted software use: To find search for software with a keyword use: 03 Display your IP address To find your IP address, use a simple script to print it to the console window. This happens just after boot up, before your login credentials are entered. Open the LX terminal and type: Add the following script…

Five essentials before you start

Get to know the Raspberry Pi SenseHAT

06 Countdown has begun Display a simple countdown from 10 to 0 on the LED matrix. Convert the number values to a string to show them on the Matrix. Open Python 3 and add the following code: 07 Enable max current draw If you have a good power supply (ie 2 amps or more) and want to connect a current-heavy device, add the line max_usb_current=1 to /boot/config.txt, to set the max current over USB to 1.2 amps instead of the default 600mA. 08 Scroll text Open your Python editor and enter the code, save and then run it to scroll your message across the SenseHAT LEDs. Adjust the colour of the message and the time it takes to scroll by including the lines, text_colour=[255, 0, 0]) (setting the RGB value)…

Get to know the Raspberry Pi SenseHAT

Start coding music with Sonic Pi

The Sonic Pi Interface 22 Why not try interacting with Minecraft, load both programs and in the Sonic Pi code window add mc_ message “Hello Minecraft from Sonic Pi!”, then click Run... 23 The coding window Musical composition is easy with code, simply write your own, follow a tutorial or copy over one of the wide range of examples to get you started. 24 Record and Export Save and share your compositions as code to allow others to edit or, record them and export your audio in WAV file format. 25 Samples, examples, synths and more Over 131 built-in samples, synths and FXs; with more coming, to give you any sound you want. Customise these further with fully codeable options. 26 Learn more Sonic Pi holds a massive selection of…

Start coding music with Sonic Pi

Master Minecraft Hacks

38 Blocks have ID numbers Within the Minecraft environment each block has a name and an ID number which is used for reference. You can retrieve the block ID using mc.getBlock(p.x,p.y-1,p.z) which returns the block type you are stood on. This is useful for working out where you are in the world and how close to other elements you are. You can then code the player to respond for example, if they are stood on grass it trampolines them into the air: 39 Know where your player is When playing Minecraft your player inhabits a three dimensional environment. The ‘x’ axis, left and right, the ‘y’ axis up and down and the ‘z’ axis for forward and backwards. As you move along any these your position is displayed at the…

Master Minecraft Hacks

10 AWESOME RASPBERRY PI UPGRADES

In its short life so far of just over three years, the Raspberry Pi has been an absolute game changer – not just as a piece of reduced price hardware, but for nurturing a community of like-minded individuals with a common goal: learning and making awesome stuff! We can’t recall the number of times we’ve browsed over to the Raspberry Pi blog and been blown away by the brilliance of a new project. From sorting Portuguese mail to making bullet time rigs, there are a lot of incredible projects out there – more and more are surfacing every day. People often ask what they can do with a Raspberry Pi and it is actually sometimes difficult to articulate an answer to that question, as the use cases are so broad…

10 AWESOME RASPBERRY PI UPGRADES

Hack a robot with Pi-Mote

You can use a Raspberry Pi and an Energenie IR board to make a brilliant remote and control your TV, but you can do so much more. Welcome to the world of the IR board, where almost anything is possible. We’ll use it to record signals from a remote control robotic toy and combine these with pygame commands to enable you to control your robot from your Raspberry Pi. Since the code is Pythonbased, you can then develop it further, use social media to control the robot with tweets, or install Flask to create a web interface accessible from your mobile phone. 01 Update the boot file Before booting up your Raspberry Pi, attach the Energenie IR board to GPIO pins. The board slots onto the top of the pins,…

Hack a robot with Pi-Mote

Self-driving RC car

Camera The camera module is the focal point for object detection. Input data is collated then put through a client program running on the Pi. Ultrasonic sensor This senses angles and surface conditions to determine the stopping distance relative to an oncoming object. Arduino This simulates the button presses of the RC car controller. Four pins connect to pins on the controller, for forward, reverse, left and right. Components list ■ Raspberry Pi B+ ■ Arduino ■ Camera module ■ HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor ■ OpenCV Where did the idea to develop a selfdriving car come from? Believe it or not, I actually did this for a school project. A lot of my interests centre around machine learning, so I decided to do something that heavily involves machine learning and the…

Self-driving RC car

Motion tracking with your Pi

In a previous article, we looked at how you can capture images using a camera and a Raspberry Pi. This let you include image capture functionality within your own Python program, but there is so much more you can do once you add vision to your code. This month, we will look at how you can add motion detection to your Python program. This kind of advanced image processing is extremely difficult to do, so we will definitely be building on the hard work of others. Specifically, we will be using the excellent OpenCV Python package. This package is constantly being improved, with more functionality being added with every update. The first thing you will need to do is install the various Python packages that you will need to talk…

Motion tracking with your Pi

Build a Pi cluster with Docker Swarm

Docker is a framework and toolchain used to configure, build and deploy containers on Linux. Containers provide a means to package up an application and all its dependencies into a single unit. This makes them easy to share and ship anywhere, giving a lightweight and repeatable environment. Each application runs in its own isolated space sharing the host’s kernel and resources, in contrast to a virtual machine which needs to ship with a full operating system. A Docker container can be started or stopped within a second, and can scale to large numbers while having minimum overhead on the host’s resources. The Docker community has built out a clustering solution called Swarm which, as of version 1.0, is claimed to be “production ready”. Our single Raspberry Pi has 1GB RAM…

Build a Pi cluster with Docker Swarm

Code a Tempest clone in FUZE BASIC Part 1

Welcome to our latest FUZE BASIC tutorial. If you haven’t already gotten hold of this programming language, FUZE BASIC can be downloaded for free for both Linux and Raspberry Pi users from fuze.co.uk/getfuzebasic. So why should you bother to learn BASIC? Well, BASIC (Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) was instrumental in starting the computing revolution back in the Seventies and Eighties. Thirty years on and BASIC, or in this case FUZE BASIC, presents a modernised version of the original classic. Now with updated commands for advanced sprite and media handling, the removal of goto and gosub commands as well as line numbers, and the fact that on modern hardware it races along, it still remains one of the easiest introductions for users wanting to jump into the world of programming.…

Code a Tempest clone in FUZE BASIC Part 1

Code a Tempest clone in FUZE BASIC Part 2

Welcome to part two of our FUZE BASIC tutorial. You w ill need t o F UZE B ASIC installed for this, and it can be downloaded for free for Linux and Raspberry Pi users from www.fuze.co.uk/getfuzebasic. Don’t worry; it’s possible to skip part one and just jump straight in here. However, because this is a fairly large program, you won’t be typing in off the page. Instead you will need to download the program listing from FileSilo or here: www.fuze.co.uk/tutorials/73MP357PART2.fuze. 73MP357 is coded by Luke Mulcahy, FUZE’s resident coder and, in the nicest way possible, our very own human supercomputer. This issue he tasks his brain with developing the basic game structure further, adding all sorts of awesome trinkets to delight. These include simple scoring, power-ups, enemies and the…

Code a Tempest clone in FUZE BASIC Part 2

Code a Tempest clone in FUZE BASIC Part 3

Welcome to the final episode of our FUZE BASIC tutorial. Over the last two parts we’ve built up a retro tunnel shooter game inspired by the classic Tempest. This month, we’re going to add in the last few features and tighten up our code to make this into a fully functional game. At almost 900 lines, 73MP357 is now a fairly significant program. You will need to download the full program as well as a few sound effect and music files, all of which are available to download from this issue’s FileSilo page or from fuze.co.uk/tutorials/73MP357.zip. Download and decompress the files, then save the resulting folder to your FUZE BASIC folder. This final version is exactly that: the finished article. We now have levels, enemies, explosions, music and sound effects,…

Code a Tempest clone in FUZE BASIC Part 3

Capture photos at night with the NoIR Pi camera

You are probably already familiar with the Raspberry Pi camera module. However, it is also available in the NoIR edition – ‘NoIR’ in this instance being shorthand for ‘no infrared’. Using this module, you can use the camera to take photos and video footage in the dark, similar to a night vision camera. Many of us are fortunate enough to have a wide variety of animals that visits our gardens and homes, and while we obviously see them more during the day, there are also a large number of nocturnal visitors to your garden. This tutorial shows you how to set up your camera, then add and combine an infrared light source and PIR motion sensor to trigger the camera and photograph night-time wildlife. Each photo that is captured is…

Capture photos at night with the NoIR Pi camera

Use your Raspberry Pi to findand track your phone

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 the Bluetooth address and some conditions to check which devices are present in a building and in…

Use your Raspberry Pi to findand track your phone

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Raspberry Pi Tips, Tricks & Hacks Volume 1 Magazine (Digital) Subscription June 1st, 2016 Issue

Raspberry Pi Tips, Tricks & Hacks Volume 1 Magazine (Digital) Raspberry Pi Tips, Tricks & Hacks Volume 2: $11.23

Raspberry Pi Tips, Tricks & Hacks Volume 1 Magazine (Digital) Subscription January 1st, 2016 Issue

Raspberry Pi Tips, Tricks & Hacks Volume 1 Magazine (Digital) Raspberry Pi Tips, Tricks & Hacks Vol 2 Revised Edition: $11.23

Raspberry Pi Tips, Tricks & Hacks Volume 1 Magazine (Digital) Subscription June 3rd, 2015 Issue

Raspberry Pi Tips, Tricks & Hacks Volume 1 Magazine (Digital) Raspberry Pi Tips, Tricks & Hacks Vol 1 Revised Edition: $11.23

Raspberry Pi Tips, Tricks & Hacks Volume 1 Magazine (Digital) Subscription December 23rd, 2014 Issue

Raspberry Pi Tips, Tricks & Hacks Volume 1 Magazine (Digital) Raspberry Pi Tips, Tricks & Hacks: $11.23

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Raspberry Pi The Complete Manual Magazine (Digital) Subscription November 1st, 2016 Issue

Raspberry Pi The Complete Manual Magazine (Digital)

8th Edition: $6.99

Rail Express Magazine (Digital) Subscription April 1st, 2025 Issue

Rail Express Magazine (Digital)

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12 Issues: $43.91 ~~$77.40~~

Real Classic Magazine (Digital) Subscription April 1st, 2025 Issue

Real Classic Magazine (Digital)

12 Issues: $29.99 ~~$59.88~~

Raspberry Pi Annual Magazine (Digital) Subscription January 2nd, 2018 Issue

Raspberry Pi Annual Magazine (Digital)

Vol 4: $8.99

Raspberry Pi 21 Brilliant Projects Magazine (Digital) Subscription July 18th, 2014 Issue

Raspberry Pi 21 Brilliant Projects Magazine (Digital)

Raspberry Pi 21 Brilliant Projects: $3.11

Raspberry Pi for Beginners Mag Book Magazine (Digital) Subscription May 13th, 2013 Issue

Raspberry Pi for Beginners Mag Book Magazine (Digital)

Raspberry Pi for beginners: $6.23

ランドネ (Digital) Subscription December 23rd, 2024 Issue

ランドネ (Digital)

No138-21068-127931517-001-001: $10.02

Real Design Rd リアルデザイン Magazine (Digital) Subscription March 27th, 2012 Issue

Real Design Rd リアルデザイン Magazine (Digital)

May 2012: $3.80

Radio Times Magazine (Digital) Subscription April 19th, 2025 Issue

Radio Times Magazine (Digital)

(1)

51 Issues: $117.56 ~~$262.65~~

Raspberry Pi The Complete Manual Magazine (Digital) Subscription November 1st, 2016 Issue

Raspberry Pi The Complete Manual Magazine (Digital)

8th Edition: $6.99

Rail Express Magazine (Digital) Subscription April 1st, 2025 Issue

Rail Express Magazine (Digital)

(1)

12 Issues: $43.91 ~~$77.40~~

Real Classic Magazine (Digital) Subscription April 1st, 2025 Issue

Real Classic Magazine (Digital)

12 Issues: $29.99 ~~$59.88~~

Raspberry Pi Annual Magazine (Digital) Subscription January 2nd, 2018 Issue

Raspberry Pi Annual Magazine (Digital)

Vol 4: $8.99

Raspberry Pi 21 Brilliant Projects Magazine (Digital) Subscription July 18th, 2014 Issue

Raspberry Pi 21 Brilliant Projects Magazine (Digital)

Raspberry Pi 21 Brilliant Projects: $3.11

Raspberry Pi for Beginners Mag Book Magazine (Digital) Subscription May 13th, 2013 Issue

Raspberry Pi for Beginners Mag Book Magazine (Digital)

Raspberry Pi for beginners: $6.23

ランドネ (Digital) Subscription December 23rd, 2024 Issue

ランドネ (Digital)

No138-21068-127931517-001-001: $10.02

Real Design Rd リアルデザイン Magazine (Digital) Subscription March 27th, 2012 Issue

Real Design Rd リアルデザイン Magazine (Digital)

May 2012: $3.80

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