Star Trek Voyager sound box for a scale model using a Raspberry Pi Zero and Pimoroni magic!

A friend of mine volunteers for a non-profit organization called Models for Heroes which aims to give Armed Forces veterans a focus for their free time by helping them get into scale modelling. He also builds his own scale models and this time it’s a model of the USS Voyager from Star Trek. He asked for some help to give the project an extra “zing” by providing sound effects. I did some research…

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Raspberry Pi 5 launched... for pre-orders

I was up at an ungodly hour this morning when I noticed a tweet from Unexpected Maker showing a screengrab of a mailing received from Element 14/Avnet which showed some details of the brand new Raspberry Pi 5. Despite promising that the Pi 5 would not appear in 2023 (and here), we are today seeing a new product launch. Against my better judgement, I decided What the heck and showered and dressed…

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Extremely Mini Raspberry Pi Cyberdeck - #raspberrypi #cyberdeck

Introduction Hi everyone. I recently took part in an episode of The Pi Cast from Tom’s Hardware during which I presented my latest project: a Mini (or Tiny!) Raspberry Pi Cyberdeck. You can see the full episode below. Of particular interest is, around the 56s mark, I show how small this really is – Banana for scale! I thought it would be worth blogging about the build, showing you what I used to…

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Portable temperature, humidity and pressure sensor using a Raspberry Pi Pico W

Hi everyone. It’s been a little while! I’ve been horribly busy with various things, including work, so it’s been difficult to keep up with blogging. I have been posting Pi stuff over on Twitter/X (how I hate that new name!) so if you follow me there, you’ll see I’m still active in the community. The project Today, I’d like to show you a project I put together over the weekend of 19th-20th August…

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Pi Wars 2024 launches - apply by 1st October!

Pi Wars is an international, challenge-based robotics competition in which teams build Raspberry Pi-controlled robots and then compete in various non-destructive challenges to earn points. The competition takes place over a single weekend and at the end of each day, prizes, medals and trophies are awarded to those competing. We have just announced the 2024 competition will be held in Cambridge,…

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The Return of Cambridge Raspberry Jam - 22nd April 2023 at Makespace! - A review

The Return of Cambridge Raspberry Jam - 22nd April 2023 at Makespace! - A review

After several years, populated by coughs and wheezes and dreadful diseases, CamJam is back, and what a wonderful event it was! Myself and Tim Richardson have happily handed over the reigns to Brian Corteil, someone we’ve known for many years, going all the way back to CamJams and especially Pi Wars of old. Brian, a Makespace Cambridge member, thought that the space would make an excellent venue…

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Review of Makeblock Ultimate 2.0 robotics kit

Today, we have on the review workbench (well… kitchen table) the Makeblock Ultimate 2.0 robotics kit. I was sent this kit for free from the manufacturers, but they have not vetted or approved this review, so it will be an honest account. TL;DR This really is an awesome kit with high-quality parts and very good LEGO/Meccano-type instructions. It’s pricey at $350+VAT/£399 inc VAT, but in this…

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Review of the Elecrow CrowBot BOLT - a fun autonomous and remote control robot kit

Nicole over at Elecrow got in touch with me about a new robotics kit they’ve been developing called the CrowBot BOLT. I agreed to review the product and give my honest opinion. TL;DR A really well thought-out, and well-produced, kit from Elecrow. A few problems with the language in the documentation aside, it is a valuable learning product for both young and old. You can buy the kit from Elecrow…

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Maker Advent Calendar - 12 days of Codemas - from The Pi Hut

All about the calendar Arriving just in time for Christmas, The Pi Hut’s Maker Advent Calendar contains all sorts of maker-y goodness to enhance the Festive season. The Calendar comes as a large box with a cardboard wrapper and will make an excellent gift – the packaging is just so lovely, and definitely on the “cute” side. Inside the main box, you will find 12 small boxes with tabs to help you…

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Elecrow Raspberry Pi Pico Advanced Kit review - lots of goodies!

Elecrow Raspberry Pi Pico Advanced Kit review – lots of goodies!

I received this kit for free from Elecrow in China in exchange for an impartial review. TL;DR – an amazing kit for the money, but the tutorials could use some attention. The contents This kit is large and full of good components. Most will be familiar to you if you’ve ever bought a 32-module kit for the Arduino. There are similar components, but they are of decent enough quality and come in a…

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Use Adafruit IO with a Raspberry Pi Pico W to create IoT dashboards using MQTT #raspberrypi #internetofthings

I decided recently to set up a string of temperature sensors around our house to work out the temperature profile of different rooms. With the recent release of the Pico W, I realised that I could do this quite simply, as long as I could find a way to “nicely” display the data. You’ll have read my exploits with Anvil last week, I expect, and saw that I didn’t have much luck. However, I knew that…

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Use the Anvil IoT service to collect data from your Raspberry Pi Pico W

Use the Anvil IoT service to collect data from your Raspberry Pi Pico W

Anvil is a web app builder website that has just launched a new “IoT Toolkit” for the Raspberry Pi Pico W called the Pico Uplink. By downloading their UF2 image (which is MicroPython-based), you will be able to send data to their site and then create your own dashboard to view the data that has been collected. What do I do? First of all, take a look at their announcement blog post. This will give…

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Create an access point with the Raspberry Pi Pico W, serve a web-page and flash the LEDCreate an access point with the Raspberry Pi Pico W, serve a web-page and flash the LED

Following various examples, I’ve created a MicroPython script that does the following: Create an access point on the Raspberry Pi Pico W. Create a web server. Serve a simple page on that web server. Toggle/flash the on-board LED when that page is loaded/refreshed. TL;DR – see the code here Download MicroPython and install it First of all, you’ll need to download the latest MicroPython UF2. The…

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Raspberry Pi Pico W launched - build your Internet of Things projects much easier!

Raspberry Pi Pico W launched – build your Internet of Things projects much easier!

Image from Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi has today launched the Raspberry Pi Pico W (see the official announcement here). This uses the same RP2040 chip as the regular Pico but has wi-fi built into it! This is going to get eaten up by the Internet of Things crowd and, at $6 (£6 ish), it is incredibly good value for money! You can buy a Pico W from Pimoroni and of course from The Pi Hut and there are…

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Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W - launching today! More processor power in a small package!

Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W – launching today! More processor power in a small package!

Fans of the Raspberry Pi Zero can today get excited about a new Raspberry Pi product – the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. TL;DR – it’s got the Pi 3B processor, 512MB of RAM and is a lot speedier than the original Zero/Zero W. New processor The big headline improvement to the Zero is that the Pi Zero 2 W uses the same processor as the Raspberry Pi 3. In technical terms, RP3A0 is a SiP that combines the…

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Review of the Cytron Technologies Maker Pi RP2040 - a motor controller board at the start of your robotics journey

Last in my mailbag of Cytron Technologies goodies, this is the Maker Pi RP2040. It has clearly been designed to get you going with your robotics journey and to give you the ability to add all sorts of inputs and outputs into a project, centered around the new RP2040 microcontroller chip from Raspberry Pi. TL;DR – great for beginners, plenty of inputs and outputs, easy to power. Another winner…

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Review of the Maker Pi Pico from Cytron Technologies - a Raspberry Pi project board worth your time

Also in my review box from Cytron (along with yesterday’s Edu:Bit) was a Maker Pi Pico. This is a board that houses a Raspberry Pi Pico and measures approximately 95mm x 70mm. The version I’ve got is the ordinary Maker Pi Pico, but there is also a Maker Pi Pico Base which just has a slot for a Pico that you may already own. The idea of this board is to make it simpler to add components onto a…

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