Viewing 31 posts - 1 through 31 (of 31 total)
  • Raspberry Pi
  • Alex
    Full Member

    One of the fellas in the village had 5 of the latest Pi’s to give away. We’ve got one for the local Girl Guide groups as they want to do an ‘introduction to programming’ course. My wife runs that hence it turning up at our house.

    Obviously I need to ‘test’ it. It’s come with all cables, SD card, etc and a few sensors I’ve yet to work out what they are.

    I’m attracted to the ‘Pi-Hole’ ad blocker someone on twitter put me onto. I might even get back into a bit of programming. Although I feel my hardcore COBOL skills may not be that helpful 😉

    If I’ve got the right sensors, a weather station sounds fun. What other uses should I be thinking about. Obviously I need to give it a full ’test’ before handing it off to the guides. Going to be a few weeks at least before they’re allowed to meet again.

    itlab
    Free Member

    Pi-hole is brilliant.

    Its the only “project” I’ve done with my pie that’s lasted more than 12 months and I don’t think I’d want to be with out it especially in a house with lots of devices. Usually I get bored and rebuild it as something else but this has become a very valued addition to the home network

    Retro Pi is great if you like retro console games as it can emulate SNES mega drive etc and use PS3 pads as controllers

    Kodi is worth a look as well and let’s the Pi work as a media centre for streaming content

    If your feeling really geeking there are also loads of Raspberry pi based NMS systems to allow graphing of your home network (router dependent)

    Alex
    Full Member

    Thanks. That last one sounds really interesting. As an ex network engineer, I’d love to map our setup. It’s a bit complex as well. Anything would be an improvement on my hand-scrawled ‘documentation’. I know everything we have runs SNMP so it could be a goer.

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    CraigW
    Free Member

    Can do interesting stuff with a camera. Either the Pi camera module, or any USB webcam can work. Set it up as a webcam, so you can view it on your phone. Or set up motion detection, or timelapse.
    Also the Pi infrared camera – add some infrared LEDs, then can use it for night vision.

    If you put it in a plastic box with a battery pack, can use it as a wildlife camera. Some instructions here. https://mynaturewatch.net/

    sharkbait
    Free Member

    Temperature sensors are great…. cheap and easy to set up. I’ve got about 7 across two houses reporting temperatures and controlling the [electric] heating in my office and at the holiday house.
    I also use them to turn lights on a off, upload PV generation, measure the level of heating oil in the tank, motion detection, house occupancy (looking for known bluetooth adapters on phones), etc

    Data is uploaded to Initial State and has been running for about 5 years now!

    zilog6128
    Full Member

    Assuming you’re talking about fun projects for the kids rather than nerdy networking stuff for yourself 😃, IMO the Pi really comes into its own when you combine it with other stuff, sensors etc, or things you physically make, so the project actually DOES something that you can see working. Things like sensors, motors, displays etc are so cheap from eBay and even HDMI tellys etc can normally be found for free or cheap if you put the word out.

    So don’t limit it to just programming. That’s a good fundamental but you can do it on any computer tbh, it’s not what makes a Pi special.

    Weather station sounds fun. Retro Pi/PiCade is great too, especially if you buy or make a kit to do an enclosure of some kind. There are loads of little robot kits you can do, r/c or line-following vehicles etc.

    If you’ve also got (or know someone with) a 3D printer this really opens up the possibilities for doing cool projects cheaply as well, especially robot stuff.

    This is something I did with another guy for Halloween last year, a zombie containment box! Pi 4 running 2x HDMI displays and driving pneumatics so the sides “pop” out as the zombie on the video bangs on the side of the box. Actually really simple but the effect was amazing! Using relays we had warning lights going off, smoke machine etc. The beauty of a project like this is that even kids who aren’t interested in techy stuff can get involved too as there’s lots of “making” needed in doing the box etc.

    You’re really only limited by your imagination!

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    We’ve got one for the local Girl Guide groups as they want to do an ‘introduction to programming’ course.

    Out of interest, do you have material for that?

    sirromj
    Full Member

    Although I feel my hardcore COBOL skills may not be that helpful

    Did you see IBM offering free lockdown training to help with shortage of people like you? https://www.inputmag.com/tech/ibm-will-offer-free-cobol-training-to-address-overloaded-unemployment-systems

    Alex
    Full Member

    Thanks all for your comments.


    @craigw
    – camera was one of the first things I thought of in terms of an attachment. I’m wondering if I can build a harness and create ‘Labrador-Cam’


    @sharkbait
    – that’s the kind of thing I was originally thinking about although I’m not sure what I’d actually do with the data. Although I quite like the idea of doing some monitoring of the big bike shed. Is it too cold to go in there and Zwift? Yes, turn heater on.


    @zilog6128
    – that’s very impressive. I’m going to try and think up a few things (like weather station) for them and see which one they fancy doing. Take your point that it’s a lot more fun if it does something.


    @grahams
    – no, but I have a horrible feeling I know who is going to be asked to write it 😉 I was hoping the power of google would find me some templates. It’s strange as I (as most people of my gen) taught ourselves. Bit like riding a bike…


    @sirromj
    – I think I’d rather sign up for fruit picking 😉 Fixing hundred of Y2K issues pre-2000 put me right off COBOL for life.

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    Depending what level you are aiming for you might want to look at the books:

    “Coding for Beginners using Scratch” (Usborne Press)
    “Adventures in Raspberry Pi” (Carrie Ann Philbin)

    But obviously there is loads of online stuff too.

    DavidB
    Free Member

    That genius Zombie containment unit needs a subtle rename to Covid-Isolator and then should be left outside a supermarket or two

    sharkbait
    Free Member

    One of the camera things I did was to rig up a battery powered pi and a web cam in the biscuit cupboard with a contact on the door that triggered the camera when it was opened.
    I found out who was eating all the biscuits when it took a picture of who was opening the door multiple times a day 😁

    Cougar
    Full Member

    Handy resource for ideas:

    https://magpi.raspberrypi.org/issues

    Alex
    Full Member

    Thanks again all.


    @grahams
    – useful, ta. Will take a look


    @cougar
    – saw that when I was googling earlier. Shall check it out in more detail later


    @sharkbait
    – I already know who that is in our house. I’d be filming myself 🙂

    kcr
    Free Member

    I’m running the central heating with a Pi, using Home Assistant, which is a complete operating system designed for home automation. It has a very comprehensive set of programming tools, displays and integration tools, so you can hook up just about any sort of input and use the information to do all sorts of things. With a single point thermostat, I could never heat the house correctly, but using Xiamoi motion and temperature sensors I can now work out which is the coldest occupied room when turning the heating on and off.

    I have another Pi set up to run a small database for online shopping orders. It captures anything we order by voice using Google Home, and adds it to the list.

    If you do any PC gaming, you can use a Pi to stream games from a PC to your television, using Steamlink. I’ve been using this to help keep the kids entertained with some of the free games that Steam and Epic are giving away just now

    The uses for a Pi are only really limited by your imagination, and there are lots of good resources online to help explain how to use it. For your Guides group, you get the beginner friendly Scratch programming system included in the default Raspbian installation.

    StirlingCrispin
    Full Member

    I run a weather station on mine:

    https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/ISTIRLIN11

    I also have one set up with Kodi.

    Personally I think the Pi is not ideal for teaching programming to kids (You can do Scratch on Chrome)

    I have a couple of BBC Microbits and they are brilliant.

    Within minutes you can have them flashing messages, reading the temperature, working as a step counter etc.

    https://microbit.org/

    Alex
    Full Member

    Thanks both… I guess it was the ‘for free’ which made us then think ‘what could we use it for with the guides’. Programming had been mentioned a couple of times.

    The weather station is something I definitely want to do. Didn’t get any time to set it up last night but will be putting some hours in over the weekend and will report back. So much stuff on line as well. Hard to know where to start.

    Flaperon
    Full Member

    I was sick of sprinting to the station only to the discover the train was running late. This little screen has a Raspberry Pi hiding behind it and grabs the data directly from Network Rail to mimic the screen in the station.

    Hangs discreetly in the kitchen over the coffee machine.

    willard
    Full Member

    Flaperon, that is awesome! Love the look of it too.

    Pi can be used to control parts of the brewing process (if you are into that), but the big ones I have done have been VPN endpoint and PiHole. I really should have another go at PiHole for the apartment now that we have a new provider. Which means a new Pi. Damn.

    HoratioHufnagel
    Free Member

    That’s great flaperon!

    I’ve got one running…
    – pi-hole
    – Transmission
    – Plex
    – OpenVPN Server (very useful on holidays as we could get iPlayer/Amazon Prime etc working from abroad)
    – Samba/NAS networked HDD

    I’ve got another I setup as a RetroPie but the novelty of seeing all these cr@ppy old games wore off pretty quickly. Need to find something else to do with it!

    mariner
    Free Member

    How about a Bat Detector?
    It been done and loads of downloadable software available.
    Looks like a touch screen and acoustic mic are the add ons.
    Quite fancy this myself.

    zilog6128
    Full Member

    @mariner That is cool, GF would love that, she has a v basic one that cost about a fiver – would be awesome to make a snazzy digital Pi one! Have you done any research i.e. got any links to the best looking project/software?

    Fantombiker
    Full Member

    I’m building a music streamer with a pi. Added a Justboom dac and volumino software to steam Spotify to my hifi controlled by the app.

    Alex
    Full Member

    Couple more chores to do then I’m firing it up after lunch!

    mariner
    Free Member

    zilog6128 See https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/designing-a-raspberry-pi-based-intelligent-ultrasonic-bat-detector-app

    If you follow the links in there then all the software is available to download.

    CraigW
    Free Member

    But you need a USB ultrasonic microphone for a bat detector. Most of those are rather expensive. €200 for the one on those plans.

    Probably easier just to plug the microphone into your phone anyway.

    mariner
    Free Member

    Probably easier just to plug the microphone into your phone anyway.

    Some information on making your own.

    http://captainbodgit.blogspot.com/2017/09/building-your-own-bat-detector-is.html

    zilog6128
    Full Member

    If you follow the links in there then all the software is available to download.

    @mariner thanks, I actually got bored of waiting for you to reply 😂 & had already found and decided to go with that one. It looks great & the guy explains it all in loads of detail (he as an instructables page with more info). there’s another, German, project (Pi Bat) that also looks pretty good, but the first one includes a GUI for the Pi which is key for portability I think.

    Probably easier just to plug the microphone into your phone anyway.

    is there a suitable app to process it? I found an app/hardware unit combo that you plug into your phone which looks cool, of course you couldn’t leave it outside as a stand-alone monitor, nor is it upgradable (or fun to build!) like the DIY open source jobby.

    cromolyolly
    Free Member

    For the girl guides I highly recommend the book raspberry pi projects for evil geniuses. It’s usp is that it starts with simple stuff like flashing LEDs and moves through more complex stuff (home security, radon and earthquake detectors etc). It covers basically all the types of devices so you can go on to use those fundamentals to build anything you want. Only limit is your imagination.

    cromolyolly
    Free Member

    This little screen has a Raspberry Pi hiding behind it and grabs the data directly from Network Rail to mimic the screen in the station.

    Hangs discreetly in the kitchen over the coffee machine.
    Posted 1 day ago

    A guy I know did a similar thing, weather, news, train times etc. Mounted the screen into the back of a mirror so that it showed through. Tried it as a bathroom mirror found it to distracting when e.g. shaving, so moved it to the kitchen. Looks like a mirror until it comes alive. There’s pictures and a guide somewhere on the internet.

    Has been known to use it to scare the whatsits out of visitors and his wife by making video of Freddy kruger suddenly appear in the mirror while people are checking make-up etc.

    mariner
    Free Member

    Let us know how it goes.

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