In today’s guest blog, Andy Clark, Engineering Manager at RealVNC, introduces VNC Connect: a brand-new, and free, version of VNC that makes it simple to connect securely to your Raspberry Pi from anywhere in the world.

Since September 2016, every version of Raspbian has come with the built-in ability to remotely access and control your Raspberry Pi’s screen from another computer, using a technology called VNC. As the original inventors of this technology, RealVNC were happy to partner with Raspberry Pi to provide the community with the latest and most secure version of VNC for free.

We’re always looking to improve things, and one criticism of VNC technology over the years has been its steep learning curve. In particular, you need a bit of networking knowledge in order to connect to a Pi on the same network, and a heck of a lot to get a connection working across the internet!

This is why we developed VNC Connect, a brand-new version of VNC that allows you not only to make direct connections within your own networks, but also to make secure cloud-brokered connections back to your computer from anywhere in the world, with no specialist networking knowledge needed.

I’m delighted to announce that VNC Connect is available for Raspberry Pi, and from today is included in the Raspbian repositories. What’s more, we’ve added some extra features and functionality tailored to the Raspberry Pi community, and it’s all still free for non-commercial and educational use.

‘Back to my Pi’ and direct connections

The main change in VNC Connect is the ability to connect back to your Raspberry Pi from anywhere in the world, from a wide range of devices, without any complex port forwarding or IP addressing configuration. Our cloud service brokers a secure, end-to-end encrypted connection back to your Pi, letting you take control simply and securely from wherever you happen to be.

While this convenience is great for a lot of our standard home users, it’s not enough for the demands of the Raspberry Pi community! The Raspberry Pi is a great educational platform, and gets used in inventive and non-standard ways all the time. So on the Raspberry Pi, you can still make direct TCP connections the way you’ve always done with VNC. This way, you can have complete control over your project and learn all about IP networking if you want, or you can choose the simplicity of a cloud-brokered connection if that’s what you need.

Simpler connection management

Choosing the computer to connect to using VNC has historically been a fiddly process, requiring you to remember IP addresses or hostnames, or use a separate application to keep track of things. With VNC Connect we’ve introduced a new VNC Viewer with a built-in address book and enhanced UI, making it much simpler and quicker to manage your devices and connections. You now have the option of securely saving passwords for frequently used connections, and you can synchronise your entries with other VNC Viewers, making it easier to access your Raspberry Pi from other computers, tablets, or mobile devices.

Direct capture performance improvements

We’ve been working hard to make improvements to the experimental ‘direct capture’ feature of VNC Connect that’s unique to the Raspberry Pi. This feature allows you to see and control applications that render directly to the screen, like Minecraft, omxplayer, or even the terminal. You should find that performance of VNC in direct capture mode has improved, and is much more usable for interactive tasks.

Getting VNC Connect

VNC Connect is available in the Raspbian repositories from today, so running the following commands at a terminal will install it:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install realvnc-vnc-server realvnc-vnc-viewer

If you’re already running VNC Server or VNC Viewer, the same commands will install the update; then you’ll need to restart it to use the latest version.

There’s more information about getting set up on the RealVNC Raspberry Pi page. If you want to take advantage of the cloud connectivity, you’ll need to sign up for a RealVNC account, and you can do that here too.

Come and see us!

We’ve loved working with the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the community over the past few years, and making VNC Connect available for free on the Raspberry Pi is just the next phase of our ongoing relationship.

We’d love to get your feedback on Twitter, in the forums, or in the comments below. We’ll be at the Raspberry Pi Big Birthday Weekend again this year on 4-5 March in Cambridge, so please come and say hi and let us know how you use VNC Connect!

The post Get ‘Back to my Pi’ from anywhere with VNC Connect appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Source: Raspberry Pi – Get ‘Back to my Pi’ from anywhere with VNC Connect

Gone, it would seem, are the days of ‘Hello, My name is…’ stickers and Sharpies. Who wants a simple sticker on their chest, so flat and dull, when they can wear an entire computer, displaying their name and face in pixelated perfection?

PiE-Ink Name Badge

I created this video with the YouTube Video Editor (http://www.youtube.com/editor)

With this PiE-Ink Name Badge, maker Josh King has taken this simple means of identification and upgraded it. And in his Instructables tutorial, he explains exactly how. But here’s the TL;DR for those wanting to get the basic gist of the build.

For the badge, Josh uses a Raspberry Pi Zero, a PaPiRus 2″ e-ink HAT, an Adafruit Powerboost 1000c, and a LiPo battery. He also uses various other components, such as magnets and adhesive putty.

Josh prepped the Zero, soldering the header pins in place, and then attached the Powerboost, allowing the LiPo battery to power the unit and be charged at the same time.

From there, he attaches the PaPiRus HAT and secures the whole thing with the putty, to ensure a snug fit. He also attaches a mini slide switch to allow an on/off function.

Having pre-installed Raspbian on the SD card, Josh follows the setup for the PaPiRus, ensuring all library information is in place and that the Pi recognises the 2″ screen. The code for the badge can then be downloaded directly from Josh’s GitHub account.  You’ll need to scale your image down to 200×96 in order for it to fit on the e-ink screen.

And there you have it. One Raspberry Pi Zero e-ink name badge, ready for you to show off at the next work function, conference, or when you visit Grandma and she still can’t get your name right.

The post Raspberry Pi Zero PiE-Ink Name Badge appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Source: Raspberry Pi – Raspberry Pi Zero PiE-Ink Name Badge

Raspberry Pi Certified Educator Grace Owolade-Coombes runs the fantastically inclusive South London Raspberry Jam with her son Femi. In this guest post, she gives us the low-down on how the Jam got started. Enjoy!

Grace and Femi Owolade-Coombes

Our Jam has been running for over a year now; we’ve had three really big events and one smaller family hack day. Let me begin by telling you about how the idea of running a Jam arose in the first place.

Around three years ago, I read about how coding was going to be part of the curriculum in primary and secondary schools and, as a teacher in the FE sector, I was intrigued. As I also had a young and inquisitive son, who was at primary school at the time, I felt that we should investigate further.

Grace visited the National STEM Learning Centre in York for a course which introduced her to coding.

I later attended a short course at the National STEM Learning Centre in York, during which one of the organisers told me about the Raspberry Pi Foundation; he suggested I come to a coding event back at the Centre a few weeks later with my family. We did, and Femi loved the Minecraft hack.

Note from Alex: not the actual Minecraft hack but I’ll be having words with our resource gurus because this would be brilliant!

The first Raspberry Jam we attended was in Southend with Andy Melder and the crew: it showed us just how welcoming the Jam community can be. Then I was lucky enough to attend Picademy, which truly was a transformative experience. Ben Nuttall showed me how to tweet photographs with the Pi, which was the beginning of me using Twitter. I particularly loved Clive Beale’s physical computing workshop which I took back and delivered to Femi.

Picademy gave Grace the confidence to deliver Raspberry Pi training herself.

After Picademy, I tweeted that I was now a Raspberry Pi Certified Educator and immediately got a request from Dragon Hall, Convent Garden to run a workshop – I didn’t realise they meant in three days’ time! Femi and I bit the bullet and ran our first physical computing workshop together. We haven’t looked back since.

Femi went on to join the Festival of Code, which he loved.

Around this time, Femi was attending a Tourettes Action support group, where young people with Tourette’s syndrome, like him, met up. Femi wanted to share his love of coding with them, but he felt that they might be put off as it can be difficult to spend extended amounts of time in public places when you have tics. He asked if we could set up a Jam that was inclusive: it would be both autism- and Tourette’s syndrome-friendly. There was such a wealth of support, advice, and volunteers who would help us set up that it really wasn’t a hard decision to make.

Grace and Femi set up an Indiegogo campaign to help fund their Jam.

We were fortunate to have met Marc Grossman during the Festival of Code: with his amazing skills and experience with Code Club, we set up together. For our first Jam, we had young coding pioneers from the community, such as Yasmin Bey and Isreal Genius, to join us. We were also blessed with David Whale‘s company and Kano even did a workshop with us. There are too many amazing people to mention.

Grace and Femi held the first South London Raspberry Jam, an autism- and Tourette’s syndrome-friendly event for five- to 15-year-olds, at Deptford Library in October 2016, with 75 participants.

We held a six-session Code Club in Catford Library followed by a second Jam in a local community centre, focusing on robotics with the CamJam EduKit 3, as well as the usual Minecraft hacks.

Our third Jam was in conjunction with Kano, at their HQ, and included a SEN TeachMeet with Computing at School (CAS). Joseph Birks, the inventor of the Crumble, delivered a great robot workshop, and Paul Haynes delivered a Unity workshop too.

Grace and Femi’s latest event was a family hack day in conjunction with the London Connected Learning Centre.

Femi often runs workshops at our Jams. We try to encourage young coders to follow in Femi’s footsteps and deliver sessions too: it works best when young people learn from each other, and we hope the confidence they develop will enable them to help their friends and classmates to enjoy coding too.

Inclusivity, diversity, and accessibility are at the heart of our Jams, and we are proud to have Tourettes Action and Ambitious about Autism as partners.

Tourettes Action on Twitter

All welcome to this event in London SAT, 12 DEC 2015 AT 13:00 2nd South London Raspberry Jam 2015 Bellingham… https://t.co/TPYC9Ontot

Now we are taking stock of our amazing journey to learn about coding, and preparing to introduce it to more people. Presently we are looking to collaborate with the South London Makerspace and the Digital Maker Collective, who have invited Femi to deliver robot workshops at Tate Modern. We are also looking to progress to more project-based activities which fit with the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s Pioneers challenges.

South London Raspberry Jam has participated in both Pi Wars and Astro Pi.

Femi writes about all the events we attend or run: see hackerfemo.com or check out our website and sign up to our mailing list to keep informed. We are just about to gather a team for the Pioneers project, so watch out for updates.

The post Inclusive learning at South London Raspberry Jam appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Source: Raspberry Pi – Inclusive learning at South London Raspberry Jam

Have you ever fancied being part of a real-life version of Being John Malkovich, without the danger of becoming trapped in a portal into the mind of an actor? This project helps you experience just that.

European telecoms operator Tele2 recently relaunched their phone and internet service with a particularly hefty data plan offering 100GB that customers can use across nine different devices, and they asked creative agency Your Majesty to market the new offering. The agency had a novel take on the brief:

In Sweden, a lot of discussion around connectivity tends to be negative, especially when it comes to controlling our exposure to media that can alter our outlook on our surroundings and the world. What if we made a campaign to show limitless connectivity in a way that changes our perspective?

Striving to alter that negative viewpoint, they didn’t focus on anything as simple as nine devices all working at once, but rather went in a very different direction.

Tele2: Settle For More – Case Film

Tele2 is a Swedish telecom company that provides phone and Internet services. They are re-launching in a big way to become the best data provider in the country and asked us to create a campaign to showcase a killer offer.

The final outcome was an immersive online experience, allowing viewers the chance to ‘step inside the minds’ of nine Swedish celebrities, including actor Joel Kinnaman and our favourite Queen of – ahem! – shoddy robots, Simone Giertz.

A custom backpack housed a 3D-printed rig to support a Raspberry Pi 3 for collection of sensor data, and a colour-grading box for footage recorded by a GoPro-equipped helmet.

“Wait: did she just say ‘collection of sensor data’?” Yes. Yes, I did. Along with the video and audio streams from the on-board GoPro and microphone, the system collected data on heart rate, emotional state, and even sweat. Delicious.

The brain sensor data collected from the EEG then controls the colour of the footage as it’s relayed back to the audience: green for calm, yellow for happy, red for angry, and blue for sad. We can confirm that Simone’s screen turned a deep shade of purple on more than one occasion, and her heart rate actually shot up when she thought she had burned out some servos.

Videos from the various participants can be viewed at the Tele2 YouTube channel, including Joel, Simone, entrepreneur Cristina Stenbeck, and altitude instructor Anna Lundh.

Working with marketing agency Edelman Deportivo and digital studio Wolfmother Co., Your Majesty documented the impact of the campaign on Bēhance, so check it out.

The post Using Pi to experience another’s reality appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Source: Raspberry Pi – Using Pi to experience another’s reality

Encouraged by the continued success of the original MeArm kit, a pocket-sized robot arm that quickly became one of the most successful of its kind for budding Raspberry Pi enthusiasts, the Bens (Gray and Pirt) are back with a new Kickstarter project: the MeArm Pi.

MeArm Pi Kickstarter Video

The Kickstarter video for the MeArm Pi – check it out at http://mime.co.uk/r/mearm-pi-kickstarter

Here’s Ben Gray with more:

The original MeArm project was designed to be simple and open source, requiring just three ingredients: servo motors, screws, and the laser cut parts. This allowed the design to spread around the world, quickly appearing on every continent except Antarctica! It was massively successful, and is still popular. Children loved it, but we could see that many parents were scared by the complexity of the build.

We wanted give children a MeArm that was simple enough for them to build by themselves. Twinning the new design with the Raspberry Pi gave us the hardware and processing power to make the whole experience pleasant, fun and simple. It takes just over 30 minutes to build the MeArm, connect it to the Pi, add that to your WiFi network and start programming in Scratch, Snap, Python or JavaScript from your browser. A great way to make learning to code a fun experience!

We’ve tried to keep the workings of the MeArm as straightforward as possible. The servos are driven directly from the GPIO pins. The joysticks use an I2C ADC to communicate directly with the Raspberry Pi. There’s an on-board RGB LED, driven directly from the GPIO pins, so that if you want to play around with it, you can. We’ve found that the standard 2A Raspberry Pi power supplies work without any issues, but if you’re plugging more things in you might consider using the 2.5A supply. The HAT has a micro USB power input, so the same power supply will power both the arm and the Raspberry Pi. The HAT follows the reference design for Raspberry Pi HATs. We’ve written a Node.js app to perform a few key tasks, including controlling the servos in the arm via the GPIO pins, and reading the state of the joysticks via the ADC. It’s all open source. We’ll continue to develop the library, adding new features based on your feedback.

We think this is a great kit for anyone wanting to step into the world of digital making, regardless of their age or experience. We’re not alone: the Kickstarter backing target was met, and doubled, in just a few days. If you’re interested in learning more about the MeArm Pi, visit the Kickstarter page.  The campaign will run until March 8th.

Good luck, Ben and Ben!

The post The MeArm Pi appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Source: Raspberry Pi – The MeArm Pi

Using a Nano Thermal Receipt Printer from Adafruit, a Sharp Memory LCD screen, and a Raspberry Pi Zero, Hackaday.io user Pierre Muth has created the PolaPi-Zero, or as I like to call it, the Oh-My-Days-How-Cute-Is-This-Camera-LOOK.

In lieu of banana, a euro for scale.

Having gifted his previous Pi-powered camera to a friend, it was time to build a new one. A version 2.0, if you please.

The camera considers itself a makeshift Polaroid, allowing for review of an image via the LCD screen before you press a button to print via the thermal printer.

PolaPi-Zero

Instant-Printing-Point-and-Shoot camera : https://hackaday.io/project/19731-polapi-zero -Raspberry pi Zero -Camera module -Sharp Memory LCD -Adafruit nano Thermal printer

Having designed the case in 123D, he used an online 3D printing service to complete the body of the camera. You can download the case file here.

Code for the camera can be found on GitHub, where Pierre apologises for the less-than-elegant look:

“This project is a good excuse to start learning Python (finally).”

You can also download the image directly here.

Follow the build via Hackaday.io, and if you make one, be sure to share it with us in the comments below. If you’ve made a similar project, again with the comment sharing.

The post PolaPi-Zero: the tiny thermal camera appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Source: Raspberry Pi – PolaPi-Zero: the tiny thermal camera

Today is Safer Internet Day, which promotes the safe use of digital technology for children and young people. There can be a lot of misconceptions about what is and is not safe in terms internet usage, which is why it is so important that experienced people, like the wonderful Raspberry Pi community, do their bit to highlight positive uses of technology, and to explore the role we all play in helping to create a better and safer online community.

If you teach computing, volunteer in a Code Club, or just want to spread the word about using technology safely and responsibly among the kids you know, why not check these projects out? You might even learn some nifty tricks yourself!

Secret Agent Chat

Fancy yourself as a bit of a James Bond? Our Secret Agent Chat resource teaches you how to create and use an effective encryption technique called a one-time pad. You’ll also learn a little about the history of cryptography, and why other forms of cipher are insecure. Remember that Safer Internet Day is all about the responsible use of technology, and try not to provoke any diplomatic incidents with your new-found power…

Username Generator

Wake up, Neo…

If you want to generate a username which is neither insecure nor boringly obvious, have a look at this project. You’ll learn how to generate a range of different aliases, and even make profile pictures to go along with them. Again, be sure to use your powers for good rather than evil!

Password Generator

Don’t be like President Skroob: make yourself a password which is actually secure. This project teaches you how to generate random, secure passwords, as well as allowing you to specify how many passwords you want and how long they should be. No roving intergalactic baddies will be stealing the air from the planet Druidia on your watch!

You can find out more about Safer Internet Day 2017 on the UK Safer Internet Centre’s website, which also contains education packs for learners, parents, and carers. You’ll have to furnish the 007-style tuxedo and flying Winnebago yourself, though.

The post Safer Internet Day appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Source: Raspberry Pi – Safer Internet Day

The theremin.

To some, it’s the instrument that reminds us of one of popular culture’s most famous theme songs. To others, it’s the confusing flailing of arms to create music. And to others still, it sounds like a medicine or a small rodent.

“Honey, can you pass me a tube of Theremin? The theremin bit me and I think it might be infected.”

In order to help their visitors better understand the origin of the theremin, Australia’s MAAS Powerhouse Museum built an interactive exhibit, allowing visitors to get their hands on, or rather get their hands a few inches above, this unique instrument.

As advocates of learning by doing, the team didn’t simply want to let their museumgoers hear the theremin. They wanted them to see it too. So to accomplish this task, they chose a BitScope Blade Uno, along with a Raspberry Pi, BitScope, and LCD monitor.

The Raspberry Pi and BitScope are left on display so visitors may better understand how the exhibit works.

BitScope go into a deeper explanation of how the entire exhibit fits together on their website:

The Raspberry Pi, powered and mounted on the BitScope Blade Uno, provided the computing platform to drive the display (via HDMI), and it also ran the BitScope application.

The BitScope itself, also mounted on the Blade, was connected (via USB) to the Raspberry Pi and powered by the Blade.

The theremin output was connected via splitters (so they could also be connected to a sound amplifier) and BNC terminated coaxial cables to the analogue inputs via a BitScope probe adapter.

We’d love to see a video of the MAAS theremin in action so if you’re reading this, MAAS, please send us a video. Until then, have this:

Sheldon’s Theremin

Sheldon playing the star trek soundtrack on his theremin

The post The Visual Theremin appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Source: Raspberry Pi – The Visual Theremin

The Cambridge office must have been very quiet last week, as staff from across the Raspberry Pi Foundation exhibited at the Bett Show 2017. Avid readers will note that at the UK’s largest educational technology event, held in London across four days, we tend to go all out. This year was no exception, as we had lots to share with you!

Hello World

It was hugely exciting to help launch Hello World, our latest joint publication with Computing At School (CAS), part of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, and sponsored by BT. I joined our CEO Philip Colligan, contributing editor Miles Berry, and Raspberry Pi Certified Educator Ian Simpson on stage in the Bett arena to share our thoughts on computing curriculums around the world, and the importance of sharing good teaching.

In our area of the STEAM village, where we had four pods and a workshop space, the team handed copies out in their thousands to eager educators interested in digital making, computing, and computer science. If you weren’t able to get your hands on a copy, don’t worry; you can download a free digital PDF and educators can subscribe to get this year’s three issues delivered, completely free of charge, to their door.

Sharing the Code Club love

Thanks to the support of some enthusiastic young people and our Code Club regional coordinators, we ran our first ever Code Club at Bett on Saturday.

codeclublondon on Twitter

Massive thanks to @TheChallenge_UK @CodeClub volunteers for helping @Raspberry_Pi out at #Bett2017 today 🙂

There was a great turnout of educators and their children, who all took part in a programming activity, learning just what makes Code Club so special. With activities like this, you can see why there are 5,000 clubs in the UK and 4,000 in the rest of the world!

Code Club South East on Twitter

Here’s @ben_nuttall enjoying our @CodeClub keepy uppy game… https://t.co/bmUAvyjndT

Free stuff

Let’s be honest: exhibitions and conferences are all about the free swag. (I walked away with a hoodie, polo shirt, and three highlighter pens.) We think we had the best offering: free magazines and classroom posters!

Code Club UK on Twitter

It’s our the final day of #Bett2017! Pop over to STEAM village to see the Code Club team & get your hands on our coveted posters! #PiAtBett

We love interacting with people and we’re passionate about making things, so we helped attendees make their very own LED badge that they could keep. It was so popular that after it has had a few tweaks, we’ll will make it available for you to download and use in class, after-school clubs, and Raspberry Jams!

The ‘All Seeing Pi‘ kept an eye on attendees passing by that we may have missed, using comedy moustaches to lure them in. We’ve enjoyed checking out its Twitter account to see the results.

Speaking from the heart

The STEAM village was crammed with people enjoying all our activities, but that’s not all; we even found time to support our educator community to give talks about their classroom practice on stage. One of the highlights was seeing three of our Certified Educators, along with their class robots, sharing their journey and experience on a panel chaired by Robot Wars judge and our good friend, Dr Lucy Rogers.

These ARE the droids you’re looking for! Bill Harvey, Neil Rickus, Nic Hughes, Dr Lucy Rogers, and their robots.

Once we started talking about our work, we found it difficult to stop. The team gave talks about Pioneers, our new programme for 12- to 15-year-olds, our digital making curriculum, and Astro Pi.

Bett on Twitter

Well done @Raspberry_Pi for such a good turn out yesterday! Keep up the good work at your stand in STEAM Village.

A royal visit

We were excited to be visited by a very special attendee, our patron the Duke of York, who spent time meeting the team, learned more about our programmes, and discussed teacher training with me.

Team Awesome

Thanks to everyone who visited, supported, and got involved with us. We ran 43 workshops and talks on our stand, handed out 2,000 free copies of Hello World and 400 Code Club posters, caught 100 comedy faces with the All-Seeing Pi, gave 5 presentations on Bett stages, took 5,000 pictures on our balloon cam, and ran 1 Code Club and 1 Raspberry Jam, across 4 days at the Bett show.

Bett lapse

Time Lapse from the Bett Show, London (2017)

The post Bringing Digital Making to the Bett Show 2017 appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Source: Raspberry Pi – Bringing Digital Making to the Bett Show 2017

Concrete Jungle started in 2009 as a volunteer-run, fruit and nut distribution organisation in the city of Atlanta. Utilising the vast number of urban fruit trees, the team, started by Craig Durkin and Aubrey Daniels, collect and deliver neglected fruit to shelters and food banks across the city.

While some urban trees are located in backyards, easily observed and maintained by their owners, others are less cared-for. And given the different harvest times for the multitude of fruit and nuts, knowing when to take the time (and a team) to pick the delicious bounty can be a bit of a hassle.

So for the last few months, Craig Durkin has been working on a Pi-powered means of using tech to notify him when fruit is ripe and ready for picking.

We’ve teamed up with Carl DiSalvo’s Public Design Workshop at Georgia Tech to try to create an electronic nose that can smell fruit ripening in a tree. This way, the tree could let us know when it’s ready to be picked.

The build has gone through several variations, all documented via a Hackaday project page. Titled ‘Electronic nose to detect fruit ripening’, Craig has tried and tested several boards, sensors, and fruits while trying to establish what gases he’s looking for, and how to detect them.

With the project still in the testing phase, it would be interesting to see what our community can suggest to help Concrete Jungle with their build.

What are your thoughts?

The post Electronic nose to detect fruit ripening appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Source: Raspberry Pi – Electronic nose to detect fruit ripening

Fishbowl existence is tough. There you are, bobbing up and down in the same dull old environment, day in, day out; your view unchanging, your breakfast boringly identical every morning; that clam thing in the bottom of the tank opening and closing monotonously – goldfish can live for up to 20 years. That’s a hell of a long time to watch a clam thing for.

Two fish are in a tank. One says “How do you drive this thing?”

Indeed, fishbowl existence is so tough that several countries have banned the boring round bowls altogether. (There’s a reason that your childhood goldfish didn’t live for 20 years. You put it in an environment that bored it to death.) So this build comes with a caveat – we are worried that this particular fish is being driven from understimulus to overstimulus and back again, and that she might be prevented from making it to the full 20 years as a result. Please be kind to your fish.

What’s going on here? Over in Pittsburgh, at Carnegie Mellon University, Alex Kent and friends have widened the goldfish’s horizons, by giving it wheels. Meet the free-range fish.

Just Keep Swimming

Build18 @CMU . . . . . . . . . . . . * Jukin Media Verified * Find this video and others like it by visiting https://www.jukinmedia.com/licensing/view/949380 For licensing / permission to use, please email licensing(at)jukinmedia(dot)com.

Alex K, negligent fishparent, says that the speed and direction of the build is determined by the position of the fish relative to the centre of the tank. The battery lasts for five hours, and by all accounts the fish is still alive. Things are a bit jerky in this prototype build. Alex explains:

The jerking is actually caused by the Computer Vision algorithm losing track of the fish because of the reflection off of the lid, condensation on the lid, water ripples, etc.

Alex and co: before you look at more expensive solutions, try fixing a polarising filter to the camera you’re using.

All the code you’ll need to torture your own fish is available at GitHub.

Of course, Far Side fans will observe that there is nothing new under the sun.

Image from Gary Larson, The Far Side.

If you’ve got any good fish puns, let minnow in the comments.

The post Robocod appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Source: Raspberry Pi – Robocod

The team at YouTube channel Hacker House always deliver when it comes to clear, detailed tutorials, and their newest project, ‘How to Make a Smartphone-Connected Door Lock’, is no exception.

Using a Raspberry Pi-powered deadbolt actuator, multiple users can remotely unlock a door via a smartphone app.

The build can be attached to your existing lock, so there’s no need to start pulling out the inner workings of your door.

The app will also notify you when the door has been unlocked, offering added peace of mind when you’re away from home.

For a full run-through, check out their video below.

How to Make a Smartphone Connected Door Lock

In this video, we show you how to make a smartphone-controlled, internet-connected deadbolt actuator powered by a Raspberry Pi that can be added onto your existing door lock without any modifications to the door. The door lock can be controlled by multiple smartphones, and even notify you whenever someone locks/unlocks the door.

You’ll need access to a 3D printer for some of the parts and, as a way to support their growing channel, the team provide printed parts for sale on eBay.

You may also wish to check out their other Raspberry Pi projects too. They’ve made a lot of cool things, including a Facebook Chatbot, a Portable Arcade Console, a Smart Mirror, and a Motion-tracking Nerf Turret.

How to Make a Raspberry Pi Motion Tracking Airsoft / Nerf Turret

In this video we show you how to build a DIY motion tracking airsoft (or nerf gun) turret with a raspberry pi 3. The airsoft turret is autonomous so it moves and fires the gun when it detects motion. There is also an interactive mode so that you can control it manually from your keyboard.

And in celebration of hitting 50k subscribers, the team are giving away two Raspberry Pis! Just subscribe to their channel and tell them how you would use one in your own project to be in with a chance of winning.

If you have built your own Raspberry Pi-powered lock or security system, we’d love to see it. So go ahead and share it in the comments below, or post it across social media, remembering to tag us in the process.

The post Hacker House Smartphone-Connected Door Lock appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Source: Raspberry Pi – Hacker House Smartphone-Connected Door Lock

As well as working with classroom teachers and supporting learning in schools, Raspberry Pi brings computing and digital making to educators and learners in all sorts of other settings. I recently attended Wintercamp, a camp for Scouts at Gilwell Park. With some help from Brian and Richard from Vodafone, I ran a Raspberry Pi activity space introducing Scouts to digital making with Raspberry Pi, using the Sense HAT, the Camera Module, and GPIO, based on some of our own learning resources.

Ben Nuttall on Twitter

Today I’m running @Raspberry_Pi activities for @UKScouting at @gpwintercamp with @VodafoneUK!

Note the plastic sheeting on the floor! Kids were dropping into our sessions all day with muddy boots, having taken part in all sorts of fun activities, indoors and out.

Ben Nuttall on Twitter

@gpwintercamp

In the UK, the Scouts have Digital Citizen and Digital Maker badges, and we’re currently working with the Scout Association to help deliver content for the Digital Maker badge, as supported by the Vodafone Foundation.

The activities we ran were just a gentle introduction to creative tech and experimenting with sensors, but they went down really well, and many of the participants felt happy to move beyond the worksheets and try out their own ideas. We set challenges, and got them to think about how they could incorporate technology like this into their Scouting activities.

Having been through the Scouting movement myself, it’s amazing to be involved in working to show young people how technology can be applied to projects related to their other hobbies and interests. I loved introducing the Scouts to the idea that programming and making can be tools to help solve problems that are relevant to them and to others in their communities, as well as enabling them to do some good in the world, and to be creative.

Scouts coding

Ben Nuttall on Twitter

Can you breathe on the Sense HAT to make the humidity read 90?” “That’s cool. It makes you light-headed…

While conducting a survey of Raspberry Jam organisers recently, I discovered that a high proportion of those who run Jams are also involved in other youth organisations. Many were Scout leaders. Other active Pi community folk happen to be involved in Scouting too, like Brian and Richard, who helped out at the weekend, and who are Scout and Cub leaders. I’m interested to speak to anyone in the Pi community who has an affiliation with the Scouts to share ideas on how they think digital making can be incorporated in Scouting activities. Please do get in touch!

Ben Nuttall on Twitter

Not a great picture but the Scouts made a Fleur de Lys on the Sense HAT at @gpwintercamp

The timing is perfect for young people in this age group to get involved with digital making, as we’ve just launched our first Pioneers challenge. There’s plenty of scope there for outdoor tech projects.

Thanks to UK Scouting and the Wintercamp team for a great weekend. Smiles all round!

The post Raspberry Pi at Scouts Wintercamp appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Source: Raspberry Pi – Raspberry Pi at Scouts Wintercamp

Today, the Raspberry Pi Foundation is launching a new, free resource for educators.

Hello World – a new magazine for educators

Hello World is a magazine about computing and digital making written by educators, for educators. With three issues each year, it contains 100 pages filled with news, features, teaching resources, reviews, research and much more. It is designed to be cross-curricular and useful to all kinds of educators, from classroom teachers to librarians.

Hello World is a magazine about computing and digital making written by educators, for educators. With three issues each year, it contains 100 pages filled with news, features, teaching resources, reviews, research and much more.

It is designed to be cross-curricular and useful to all kinds of educators, from classroom teachers to librarians.  While it includes lots of great examples of how educators are using Raspberry Pi computers in education, it is device- and platform-neutral.

Community building

As with everything we do at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Hello World is about community building. Our goal is to provide a resource that will help educators connect, share great practice, and learn from each other.

Hello World is a collaboration between the Raspberry Pi Foundation and Computing at School, the grass-roots organisation of computing teachers that’s part of the British Computing Society. The magazine builds on the fantastic legacy of Switched On, which it replaces as the official magazine for the Computing at School community.

We’re thrilled that many of the contributors to Switched On have agreed to continue writing for Hello World. They’re joined by educators and researchers from across the globe, as well as the team behind the amazing MagPi, the official Raspberry Pi magazine, who are producing Hello World.

print (“Hello, World!”)

Hello World is available free, forever, for everyone online as a downloadable pdf.  The content is written to be internationally relevant, and includes features on the most interesting developments and best practices from around the world.

The very first issue of Hello World, the magazine about computing and digital making for educators

Thanks to the very generous support of our sponsors BT, we are also offering the magazine in a beautiful print version, delivered for free to the homes of serving educators in the UK.

Papert’s legacy 

This first issue is dedicated to Seymour Papert, in many ways the godfather of computing education. Papert was the creator of the Logo programming language and the author of some of the most important research on the role of computers in education. It will come at no surprise that his legacy has a big influence on our work at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, not least because one of our co-founders, Jack Lang, did a summer internship with Papert.

Seymour Papert with one of his computer games at the MIT Media Lab
Credit: Steve Liss/The Life Images Collection/Getty Images

Inside you’ll find articles exploring Papert’s influence on how we think about learning, on the rise of the maker movement, and on the software that is used to teach computing today from Scratch to Greenfoot.

Get involved

We will publish three issues of Hello World a year, timed to coincide with the start of the school terms here in the UK. We’d love to hear your feedback on this first issue, and please let us know what you’d like to see covered in future issues too.

The magazine is by educators, for educators. So if you have experience, insights or practical examples that you can share, get in touch: contact@helloworld.cc.

The post Hello World – a new magazine for educators appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Source: Raspberry Pi – Hello World – a new magazine for educators

Google is going to arrive in style in 2017. The tech titan has exciting plans for the Raspberry Pi community, with a range of AI and machine learning services ready to roll.

A robot built at one of our Picademy@Google sessions

To make this happen, Google needs help from the Raspberry Pi community. Raspberry Pi fans are the best makers around, and it’s their ideas that will give the tech company direction.

Here’s what they have to say:

Hi, makers! Thank you for taking the time to take our survey. We at Google are interested in creating smart tools for makers, and want to hear from you about what would be most helpful.  As a thank you, we will share our findings with the community so that you can learn more about makers around the world.

The company can produce some serious tools for the maker community, so make sure you have your say to get the tools you need.

Let Google know what you would like by clicking here and filling out the survey.

What Google has to offer

Makers at Picademy at Google

Google has developed a huge range of tools for machine learning, IoT, wearables, robotics, and home automation.

From face- and emotion-recognition and speech-to-text translation, to natural language processing and sentiment analysis, the firm has developed a lot of technology in the fields of machine learning and AI.

The tech giant also provides powerful technology for navigation, bots, and predictive analytics.

The survey will help them get a feel for the Raspberry Pi community, but it’ll also help us get the kinds of services we need. So, please take five minutes out of your day and let them know what you would like by filling out this survey.

The post Help Google develop tools for Raspberry Pi appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Source: Raspberry Pi – Help Google develop tools for Raspberry Pi