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Reading Time: 3 minutesPlaying against an on-screen computer opponent just isn’t the same, says Geoff. “It loses the social aspect.” Furthermore, it takes time to adapt from on-screen diagrams to playing with a physical board and pieces – something he imagines more people doing now that the TV show has given chess a moment in…

Reading Time: 3 minutesSean has been keeping bees for around seven years and began developing a small photo booth – the HoneyBee Booth – that would use artificial intelligence to detect and count Varroa mites, and notify him of the findings. He adapted it to detect other species on hearing about the murder hornets’ arrival.…

Reading Time: 2 minutesSet up a sibling alarm Brothers! Sisters! Boo! If your sibling is driving you up the wall by messing with your stuff, then catch them in the act. Using a Raspberry Pi HQ Camera and a cheap magnetic door sensor, you can take a photo or record video whenever the door opens,…

Reading Time: 2 minutesInstall smart lighting Most HA projects start with lighting. Being able to switch lights on throughout the house, wherever you are, or have them react to different sensors or events is a great way to get started in this field. There are a lot of options and the prices have plummeted. Check…

Reading Time: 2 minutesThere are other ways to relay the information, though, such as how Sukriti has made use of touch: “This open-source solution uses a Raspberry Pi Zero W and a mobile phone to relay turn-by-turn instructions with haptic feedback, more commonly known as vibrations, over an SSH connection with the mobile device.” A…

Reading Time: 3 minutesFor Andrew DeGonge, the latter question has a clear cut answer: crusts are to be chopped. Indeed, he’s so determined that the sides of bread are banished, he’s used his loaf and created an automatic guillotine-like device to do the hard work for him. “Crust in general isn’t my main problem. Cheap…

Reading Time: 3 minutesTo use the Explorer Base, your Pico will need to have male pin headers soldered, facing downwards – if you don’t fancy doing this yourself, it’s possible to buy Pico boards with pre-soldered pins. It’s then just a case of mounting your Pico in the dual female headers; a helpful ‘landing area’…

Reading Time: 3 minutesBy rotating a strip of LEDs at high speed and syncing their blinking patterns, it’s possible to create the illusion of a still or moving image. This is just what Japan-based family team of makers HomeMadeGarbage have done for their POV Display, even spinning a Raspberry Pi Pico around with the LED…

Reading Time: 3 minutesTo do this, Chinthaka has been leading a team in using a standard radio-controlled quadrocopter drone fitted with a Raspberry Pi 3B+  and a Camera Module. They’ve worked on an automatic landing system, allowing the drone to be brought down to the ground without mishap. “Automatic landing is a kind of automatic…

Reading Time: 3 minutes“So my official title is Club Programs Coordinator,” Kevin tells us. “What that means is I help develop engagement strategies and also implement them to keep our youth programs community (Code Club, CoderDojo, Coolest Projects) in the USA fully immersed in all of the free resources we have. It involves a lot…

Reading Time: 3 minutesThe IoT Cricket (£16) is a small package based on the ubiquitous ESP8266 chipset, popular for its solid wireless LAN support. ESP microcontrollers are widely available and some can be had for just a couple of pounds, so it may come as a surprise to see a British-designed and made product introduced…

Reading Time: 3 minutes“I have always loved robots,” Nick tells us. “Building my own autonomous robot has been a goal for me, as long as I can remember. I also wanted to make my robot useful. I am always making things but then end up taking them apart the next week because they didn’t end…

Reading Time: 3 minutesHome of the future  This is a wonderful feature that’s packed with innovative ideas for DIY projects. We’ve gone room-by-room around the house and looked for Raspberry Pi projects that turn a dull house into a smart home. Pico-fied Raspberry Pi projects Raspberry Pi’s new microcontroller offers new ways to go about…

Reading Time: < 1 minuteSave 37% off the cover price with a subscription to The MagPi magazine. Try three issues for just £5, then pay £25 every six issues. You’ll save money and get a regular supply of in-depth reviews, features, guides and other PC enthusiast goodness delivered directly to your door every month. Subscribe

Reading Time: 6 minutesIn this tutorial we’re going to use a popular messaging protocol, MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport). With MQTT we will set up a simple do-not-disturb sign that you can trigger with a single key press and customise to your heart’s content. Step 01: Prepare Raspberry Pi We’re using two Raspberry Pi Zero…

Reading Time: 6 minutesBut pairing a Raspberry Pi Pico with the bright LEDs of a Unicorn Pack means you can see at a glance when your next break is approaching and, if you keep it just out of your eyeline, that warm red glow is a reminder to carry on working. Step 01: Give your…

Reading Time: 5 minutesRecently we looked at a superb case from Argon (magpi.cc/argononem2) which transformed our Raspberry Pi 4 by upgrading the boot drive to an M.2 SSD. The result was a tenfold increase in storage speed, making for faster performance across the board. Apps load more quickly, and browsing the internet is vastly improved.…