Devon and Cornwall GNU/Linux Users Group

Category Archives: programming

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.

Exeter Raspberry Pi jam

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2nd August 2014, saw yet another pi jam take place in Exeter Library / Fab lab,  the 2 hour session seemed to be really busy. In the main fab lab there was a introduction to raspberry pi workshop where users were given an intro to the pi and had a chance to experiment with some electronic interfacing SAM_0240 The Library / fablab have some new raspberry pi model B+ for users SAM_0241 Bag of components from CPC ready for the work shop SAM_0244 This is a project from Mark evans, the display shows the Pis IP address SAM_0252 SAM_0253 Some of the creations by some of the younger visitors using scratch SAM_0254 And yes minecraft on the pi,  i think we managed to hack this enough to get the tnt blocks to explode with code rather than using redstone torches which are not available in MC Pi edition. SAM_0242 And bob made an appearance one of Tom Broughs many projects.  This is arduino based but that is not really important, anyone inspired to make their own Bob ask Tom for info :).

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Handy – Scratch controlled robot arm  (not the mini webcam)- issue with camera settings hence it is dark,

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Freddie (photo from a previous jam ) has now improved further.

 

So in all an excellent jam,  more of the same on Saturday 9th August in paignton,  we hope to see lots of people there :), and maybe we can look in to doing mini workshops at a future date.

 
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Raspberry Pi jam July 14 – Torbay

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For anyone who missed out today,  we had another great pi jam,  Big thank you to those that turned up and the 4 young people who also made it.

Again today was a good mix,  Tom demonstrated his latest project: a face with a built in  webcam that can track a coloured ball using OpenCV!  This uses both Raspberry Pi and Arduino.

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Video

 

One of the young people showed me the fg and bg commands, so my pi-liter project can now run but be put in the background,  while it runs.  I showed him the cowsay command, and one of the other young people got cmatrix working.  These young people are uber L337.

I attempted to install Skype from Ubuntu software centre,  failed,  tried to download and then tell the installer to run through software centre,  that failed,  so just used dpkg and it worked fine without problems! I put a few notes on my website about this.

We could now do with more monitors and Pis, so we can get more people set up with Pis.  I think we may have a few laptops at a future jam.

 
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Torbay Pi jam July 14

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For anyone who missed out today,  we had another great pi jam,  Big thank you to those from the Lug that turned up and the 4 young people who also made it.

Again today was a good mix,  tom demonstrated his latest project a face with a built in webcam that can track a coloured ball using open CV,  this uses both Raspberry Pi and Arduino.

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Video

One of the young people showed me the fg and bg commands, so my pi-liter project can now run but be put in the backgroiund,  while it runs.  I showed him the cow say command, and one of the other young people got cmatrix working.

I attempted to install scratch from ubuntu software centre,  failed,  tried to download and then tell the installer to run through software centre,  that failed,  so just used dpkg  worked fine without problems.

 

 
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Pi jam Write up July 14

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Just got back from the Raspberry Pi jam in Exeter and have included a few photos below of some of the things on show.

 

First off is Tom Broughs Excellent Wii remote scratch game,  this uses Python to take input from the wii remote via bluetooth and pass it on to scratch, so that the cat can be controlled to move around and catch / eat falling fish.

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Still with tom, we had handy (robot arm controlled from scratch) and Bob the robot which as arduino at its heart.

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We also had Lego Rovers Devon make an appearance,  amazing what you can do with lego and the nxt block

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We also helped Chinna out with his buggy made from an old remote control car and raspberry pi.

Chinnas Blog can be found here

http://scientistnobee.wordpress.com/2014/07/05/raspberry-pi-spotter/
And a link to github for the code
https://github.com/scientistnobee/Raspberry-Pi-Spotter

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Scratch game created by one of the young people.

 

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This is the new Raspberry Pi compute module courtesy of Gordon Henderson

 

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Trevor sharp had a Self made IO board on show

 

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Demo of my own Pilte,  More info on my website at http://www.zleap.net

 

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Minecraft on the pi

 

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Arduino based distance measuring project using the ultrasonic module HC-SR04

 

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Simons pi powered music chimer.

 

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Fab lab was open, showcasing the range of things that can be made with some of their kit

 

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Pi jam 22/3/2014

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Another month and another trip up to Exeter to take part in a Pi jam.  Again anyone not there missed some really good projects.

Gordon Henderson came along with the fuze box,  fuze basic now integrates with minecraft pi allowing you to write programs that directly control the minecraft world.

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Fuze box running Minecraft Pi and Fuze Basic.

The Glockenspiel was again there along with the other projects from a local school teacher.

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I didn’t demo any of my own projects but did do a quick demo of Sonic Pi and my nested loops program to the lady organising Sidmouth Science week,  My main demo on my pi was the Helicopter game created by Tom Brough.  Who demonstrated his Bob Robot, (see blog for videos that have been previously created)

Tom was also using a digital picture frame to explain how bob works.

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Another project had a LCD display to dispay the local IP address ( I think) of the device on the network

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It is the small box on the right hand side with the green display

In all another successful event and looking forward to the Torbay Jam on 12th April,  Hope to see lots of families, children, teachers and other school staff there.  We need more demos 🙂

 

 
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Exeter Pi jam – 22/02/2014

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As always an excellent mix of social activity,  techy talk and great demos.

Highlights are illustrated below with photos.

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Over 1/2 term.  Exeter library hosted an event for children that used the raspberry pi camera to make a video of a puppet theatre.   The top photo was of a screen displaying the result of this work.  It looked pretty good and all achieved with the help of the PI.

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Tom Brough recently aquired a doodle bot,  which is using an Arduino based system to draw.  The picture is of the bot, the holder at the front is for the pen.

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A pi set up.  This was used by several people through out the event, python programming,  and by myself to give a quick demo of scratch.

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The chimer, which will be familiar to regular pi jam visitors has now been expanded further.

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This is another ones of Tom Broughs projects,  Helicopter game, which was also demoed at the Torbay jam.  This has now been set up on my pi too,  but Tom helped me get bluetooth support up and running.

As mentioned,  hopefully see more people at the next event,  you never know who will come or what will be demoed, and as a result you could mis out on some real gems of projects.

Next Exeter jam is 22nd March,   The next Torbay Jam is 8th March ( please see the previous jams page for a write up of the Torbay Pi jam for Feb.)

See you at the next jam.
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