Devon and Cornwall GNU/Linux Users Group

Category Archives: Previous Jams

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Torbay Raspberry Pi jam – Feb 15

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This months Pi jam was a real gem,   lots of things being demoed and some excellent progress being made with various projects.

Tom, brought along his Marco 2 robot,  which if you are following this blog or are a regular attendee of jams.  This has now been updated to allow control via a web interface.

More information on this is on the Feb 2015 Exeter Jam write up blog post.  So I will let people go there for more info.

Tom also brought along Freddie and after some basic set up this worked fine,  following a green ball with his eyes.

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Video taken back in July


Doodle bot also made an appearence this is really good as it works without any user interaction and can draw (or try) to draw what it has been programmed to.

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We also helped a lady get up and running with her new pi,

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Here is the pi being installed from the NOOBS install tool

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And a picture of the pi running the Raspbian OS after install.

I also demonstrated my Minecraft Pi coding with python.  I will post a video to youtube and put this on my website blog.

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We also helped out a user who had an older install of GNU / Linux on his PC (Debian)  and wanted a newer GNU / Linux installed so flash player would function properly.

We were unble to help fully however he will be back at the next jam iwth his PC backed up so we can install Linuxmint 17.1

One of our younger members also worked on getting a cluster of computers up and running and thanks to a router / switch donated by Rick at Wifispark he got 2 laptops and my Pi up and running and proved that by sharing the load calculations can be performed quicker.   There is a dedicated page for this on the website.  Where results will be posted shortly.

We also had a Dan from the TDA drop in to see what was going on with the view on how they can help further and perhaps involve some of the local hi tech companies.

So a BIG thank you for everyone involved today and everyone who came along to support the event.  Hopefully next month will be more of the same and perhaps even bigger and better.

We also had Sarah from Inspiring Dreams, Achieving Change, who offered to help promote what we are doing.

The word on the Pi jams IS spreading.  which is a good thing.

See everyone on the 14th March 2015 at Paignton Library.  13:00 to 15:00

 

September Raspberry Pi jam

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Torbay Raspberry Pi jam – Write up 13th September 2014

This month we had the usual mix of projects, help and advice.

First off :

Tom Brough brought along freddie and bob, to demonstrate, Freddie now has a user interface, written in python and I guess tkinter. This allows control over features, which colour the web cam detects OR you can control freddies arms with the interface. Again this proved popular and there could be some interest to run a build your own freddie activity at a future event.

Gordon was on hand to demonstrate some of his ever increasing array of add on boards for the Pi, this is now looking rather impressive esp with the pi-moroni kit to look at.

We also had the virtually safe people along in a tie in to advise people on internet safety, while we didn’t get anyone in specifically to see them, they did talk to the 3 young people and discussed issues that concerns them e.g swearing in chat rooms. The young people also showed them their projects, including a minecraft clone in scratch. We also installed minetest which is the free MC clone.

So a big thank you to the two PCSOs from the virtually safe team. I think you gained something from the chat with the young people which is a good thing. I will discuss getting you back in, in the mean time we have some flyers for the next Pi jam.

http://www.torbayvirtuallysafe.co.uk/

The Pi jam now have 3 laptops for people to use, the idea here being that these are extra computers to either run scratch, or perhaps use for remotely accessing a Raspberry Pi.

I helped a young lad and his dad with some advice on what is needed to get started with a Pi, where to buy from and what can be done with a pi, and then left them to have a go with scratch / Python.

A big thank you to everyone involved, and especially Dan S for bringing two laptops and a stack of Maplins flyers down. Thank you also goes to Rob Beard for PAT testing the PSU’s this means they are certified as safe for people to use.

The next Pi jam in Devon is 4th October at Exeter library 10 – 12

The next Pi jam in Torbay is 11th October, this is the same week as European code week, so the Jam is listed on the codeweek website.

Please tell friends, teachers, work colleages, children / young people lets get lots of people to the events in October.

The event is slowly building up, we took positives from today so we are working on a few items behind the scenes.

Next time expect more of the same, I am hoping to demonstrate ToriOS which is a minimal Linux based operating system based on Ubuntu 12.04 (http://www.torios.org/)

There is more to a Pi jam than simply Raspberry Pi. It is also about coding, education, help & advice and keeping safe while coding.

Torbay Raspberry Jam – 12th April 2014

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Again we had a mix of things going on,  Tom Brough brought Bob along, with more improvements / enhancements from last time.  He can walk and was set in guard dog mode, which those of you who attended the last Exeter Jam will know he just sits there until activated by movement detected by the ultrasonic sensor. Most of the enhancements are with the walking mechanism. Continue reading →

Torbay Raspberry Pi Jam – 8th March 2014

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Following on from last month, we one again had a good mix of projects on offer.  Gordon Henderson brought the fuze box,  a project to help get the pi in to schools,  pi inside a custom case with keyboard,  and a recess with built in breadboard and access to the gpio header,  you also get a box of components with it.  The main demonstration was of the built in fuze basic which is a more full featured version of return to basic written by Gordon Henderson. But written for the fuzebox. Continue reading →

Torbay Raspberry Pi Jam – 11th January 2014

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Torbay Raspberry Pi Jam – By Paul Sutton

 

The 2nd Raspberry pi jam in Torbay took place on the 11th Jan at the Library. A few projects were demonstrated. One of the projects being demonstrated was by Tom Brough, he built a raspberry pi robot last year and has been adding enhancements etc to it ever since. The robot now has the ability to scan a printed qr code, store it’s contents and then read these back and then move around.

Continue reading →