Kategorie: Linux

Reading Time: 2 minutes

More than a simple enclosure for the Raspberry Pi Zero, this rather familiar-looking unit is a full-blown battery-powered gaming console that (just about) fits in the palm of your hand.

Game on

The clever design of the RetroFlag GPi case replicates that of eighties handheld consoles, including a cartridge-like unit that slides out of the rear and is quickly disassembled to reveal space for a Raspberry Pi Zero. A very neat ‘pogo’ mounting system means no header or soldering is required: a Raspberry Pi Zero just slots in and pressure maintains the contacts. The reassembled unit then slots into the main body and you’re ready to go. You can even access the microSD card without removing the ‘cartridge’. Power is supplied by three AA batteries or a supplied USB cable.

Full and clear instructions are provided to install support for the gamepad buttons and also the on/off switch that provides easy and safe shutdown. We found the unit easy to assemble and had the retro games simulator RetroPie running in no time at all.

We were particularly impressed by the RetroFlag’s screen, which uses IPS rather than TFT to give a razor-sharp display from any angle without any of the common side-lighting issues. A small audio speaker is built-in, with the option of headphones. The case itself is injection-moulded, solid and beautifully made.

Specifications

• Dimensions: 
138×81×32 mm

• Weight: 
138 g

• Display:
 2.8-inch IPS

• Powered by:
 3 AA batteries or USB

• Compatibility:
 Raspberry Pi Zero or Zero W (not Zero WH)

Verdict

Pi Hut’s RetroFlag GPi is one of the best gaming cases we’ve seen. A great design, easy assembly and, most of all, great fun to use. An essential 
purchase for any retro gamer.
10/10

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Pi Wars 2020 is going to be an absolute train wreck – at least that’s the hope of its organisers, Mike Horne and Tim Richardson. With a somewhat apocalyptic atmosphere swirling when it came time to choose a theme, Pi Wars organisers declared the 2020 event – the sixth Raspberry Pi robot battle weekend – would have a Disaster Zone theme.  

Fans of zombie films, dystopia, and event horizons rubbed their hands in glee. The most switched-on 76 teams (of the 128 that applied) nabbed a place in the three-day competition which sees competitor Raspberry Pi-controlled robots pit their skills against each other in a range of non-destructive battles and challenges. Both autonomous and remote-controlled robots jostle for victory by completing up to seven fiendishly complex tasks. 

Catastrophic courses

In previous years almost all the courses have been built by co-organiser Tim Richardson. This year sees several other course builders get in on the act, including Phil Hall with his Eco Disaster challenge [pictured]. Here, robots must navigate a course away from the toxic sludge spilled by an overturned tanker and reach the safe zone.

Robots vying for victory at Pi Wars 2020 will also have to face the ‚blind maze‘ of the Escape Route challenge and a bomb defusing Minesweeper course. Autonomous robots will encounter Lava Palava while robots that are remotely controlled face Zombie apocalypse, The Temple of Doom obstacle course and a Hindenburg Disaster version of the fiercely competitive Pi Noon balloon-popping head to head encounter.

DIY designs

Newbies, veterans, and school teams each have dedicated competition days, helping ensure everyone has a fair shot of victory. Teams from 17 countries are taking part. Unlike TV’s Robot Wars (the original inspiration for Pi Wars), there’s no celebrity version – and each team is expected to design, build, and test their own robot.

Competitor entries to this year’s event, held over the final weekend of March at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, filled up months ago and many teams have been blogging and tweeting about their robot’s build progress: 

Spectator tickets are available here. Volunteers and under 16s get in free.

Reading Time: 6 minutes

For part I of this guide to tools every maker should have, see here.

Warning

Some of these tools use mains electricity and heated parts. Always follow connection instructions and never leave heated elements unattended.

Cutting, trimming and coverings

26. Card trimmer

A card trimmer will enable you to cut crisp straight lines in paper or thin card. It’s much quicker than a ruler and craft knife. Small ones are good for trimming photos, and a good-quality trimmer will last for years.

27. Robotic craft cutter

A robotic craft cutter is very much like a plotter, but has a knife instead of a pen. They can cut very intricate designs out of paper and fairly thick card. They can be a bit temperamental and often need a sticky carrier sheet to work well.

28. Laser cutter or engraver

Laser cutters and engravers fire a laser at a material to either cut through it or to leave a mark or indent on the surface, depending on the intensity of the laser. Very effective for cutting irregular wooden shapes.

29. Laminator

Lamination is the process of coating a material with a plastic film. This protects the material from moisture and other damage. It also makes the material thicker. Plastic laminate comes in various thicknesses and surface finishes.

30. Conductive paint

Generally coloured black and supplied in a tube, conductive paint can be used to draw electrical circuits on paper or card, or to improve poor connections between components and even to create touch-sensitive areas on materials. Dries in a few minutes.

31. Acrylic and thermoplastic sheet

Acrylic plastic sheeting is very tough and can be cut using a saw or CNC router, whereas thermoplastic sheets are malleable when heated with a heat gun. Once cool again, thermoplastic retains its new shape.

32. Polymorphic plastic

This material is usually supplied as granules or beads. You can heat them up in boiling water and they will clump together in a mass. While still warm, you can mould the plastic before it sets hard in ten minutes or so.

33. Aluminium foil

Available from convenience stores and supermarkets, aluminium foil can be used as a conductor in a circuit, as shielding to reduce electromagnetic interference, and also to reflect light and heat either away from or towards an area.

Tools for connecting electronics

34. GPIO ruler/chart

GPIO (general-purpose input/output) pins are the interface between your Raspberry Pi and electronic components. Until you learn which pin is which, you’ll need a guide. There are several GPIO rulers and guides available to make life easier.

35. Header connector

For some projects, you may want to connect a HAT or pHAT to your Raspberry Pi, but not place it right on top of the board. In this case, a female-to-male 40-way ribbon connector enables you to extend the reach of the GPIO pins.

36. Jumper wires

Jumper wires connect Raspberry Pi GPIO pins to electronic components. Use them with a breadboard to prototype your circuit, or solder them directly to components. Be sure to get a variety of different colours to make your project easier to understand.

Tools for soldering

37. Desoldering kit

This equipment enables you to clean melted solder from components on a printed circuit board, allowing their removal or replacement.

38. Soldering station

A handy stand to place a soldering iron while it is still plugged in and hot. The sponge should be wet to clean the end of the iron.

39. Soldering iron

An absolute necessity for soldering or desoldering components onto printed circuit boards. For detailed work, an iron with a pointed end is best.

40. Third hand tool

Usually has a solid, heavy base with jointed arms with clips or holders at the end, and a magnifying glass for working on small components.

41. Multimeter

You need to be able to measure current, resistance, and voltage in your circuits. Digital multimeters can cost as little as £10.

42. Gorilla Glue

Similar to superglue, but supplied with a brush to apply it, Gorilla Glue sticks most materials and very good for 3D-printed parts. Usually takes around half an hour to dry.

43. Nuts, bolts & screws

Having a good range of sizes and shapes of nuts, bolts, and screws is absolutely necessary for making anything that you are not going to glue. Keep a jar full of spares.

44. Sticky tape

For temporarily holding things in place or insulating wires. You can also use tape for wrapping handles of tools. Also good for removing cat fur from jumpers.

45. Blu Tack

Usually used for keeping posters on walls, but can also be used for holding components in place while soldering. It also rubs out pencil marks if you don’t have an eraser.

46. Power bank/batteries

Most maker projects need power, so it is a good idea to have a range of battery holders. Power banks for recharging phones can also be used for 5V supplies.

47. 3D creation software

You may want to visualise your build before starting, and there are many 3D software packages to help you for free, like Blender; or with free trial versions, such as SketchUp.

48. Fritzing

When you have completed your project, you may want to document how you did it. Fritzing is a great program for laying out circuit diagrams.

49. Paper clips

Can be used to connect components, clean out small nooks and crannies, or hold materials in place. Apparently, you can pick locks with them too!

50. Documentation

One of the most important tools you will use for just about any maker project is reference material. Your Raspberry Pi may have come with some tips and hints about making, and many kits have worksheets and Frequently Asked Questions sections with them.

Also, make best use of the online resources that detail other people’s experiences: like Stack Overflow for information about any technical subject; blogs such as modmypi.com, recantha.co.uk, and blog.pimoroni.com; and of course the Raspberry Pi site and magazines. If you’re stuck getting something to work, it’s likely someone else has had the same problem!

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Should the world ever be plunged into an apocalypse, then Jay Doscher should do just fine. He’s created a rugged-looking laptop using a Raspberry Pi 4 computer and placed it within a small, air- and watertight Pelican case. Aimed at getting technology up and running in the event of a disaster, it should see him through the most testing of times.

“Most people prioritise food and shelter in the event of a disaster, but what do you do when those are resolved – how do you get technology working again?” asks Jay, an IT professional and technology enthusiast based in the San Diego area.

“The apocalypse is more of a thought exercise for me, but I’ve certainly created a very useful computer that is much easier to work on or modify than a regular laptop.” Jay likes to focus on open-source projects, as his Twitter and Instagram feeds reveal.

Past lessons

Jay has been here before. In 2015, he popped a Raspberry Pi 2 into a weather-resistant enclosure and created the Raspberry Pi Field Unit that could run off a 12 V or higher power source, in this case a solar panel. Perfect for outdoor use, it also utilised an Adafruit real-time clock to retain accuracy when off the network. But it was far from perfect.

“The Raspberry Pi Recovery Kit is an evolution of that previous build,” he says. “Although each has different goals, I wanted a Raspberry Pi setup that could be rugged and work in a more hostile environment. I also wanted a system that could serve more than one purpose, since the Raspberry Pi platform is so flexible.”

One of the first issues he looked to address was the original lack of a keyboard. This time around, he bought a Plaid keyboard kit and, to his delight, noted that it was a perfect fit for his Pelican 1300 case. Jay also chose to use the official 7-inch Raspberry Pi touchscreen. This did away with the need for a mouse, while freeing up a much-needed USB port on Raspberry Pi 4.

With attention paid to tight wiring and realising that he could get away with powering the unit using 5 V, thereby reducing the need for 12 V circuitry, it wasn’t long before the project began coming together. “A Raspberry Pi computer is perfect for this project because it’s small, flexible on GPIO, and has great support for third-party add-ons like the GPIO breakout HAT I used,” Jay says.

Future-proofing

For a neat interior and to ensure all of the components could be easily held in place, internal parts were printed on a Prusa i3 MK3S 3D printer. For the host of connectors, a panel was produced with locking switches that could turn individual components on and off. These allowed control over Raspberry Pi 4, display, and Netgear five-port Ethernet network, saving power in a potential emergency. A switch also allows toggling between an internal and external battery.

“The internal battery has been the most difficult part, and I am still working on that,” Jay says. “There are no real considerations on the Raspberry Pi board itself for battery management, and Raspberry Pi 4 was pretty power-hungry when I built this kit.”

Thankfully, coding proved easier. “It’s a regular Raspberry Pi laptop in many ways, but I am working on scripts to mirror my GitHub projects, Wikipedia and Raspbian APT libraries while following their guidelines on proper mirroring,” he reveals.

The result is a cyberdeck that can work as a portable standalone network core if needed. “It’s a great system to keep air-gapped from the rest of the network when not in use,” Jay concludes. The battle for survival starts here.

Quick facts

• No holes were drilled into the Pelican case

• The entire device is kept watertight

• The main frame took 24 hours to 3D-print

• It can be powered internally and externally

• It’s stored in an electromagnetic pulse shielding box

Reading Time: 9 minutes

Raspberry Pi 4 – like all the other members of the ever-growing Raspberry Pi family – is entirely usable as is, and plenty of people appreciate the aesthetic of a bare board on a desk.

For those who don’t, there are a wealth of cases – both first- and third-party – available. You’ll find one, the Raspberry Pi 4 Stand, mounted on the cover of this magazine, while the others in this group test can be found at all major retailers.

Each case here has been tested for aesthetics, complexity of assembly, and its performance in keeping Raspberry Pi 4 running cool.

How we tested

Each case was given a heavy synthetic workload to represent a worst-case scenario. This workload, which stresses both the central and graphics processors, runs for ten minutes followed by a five-minute cooldown period. Full details of the workload can be found in The MagPi issue 88.

Raspberry Pi 4 Stand

Made by Pimoroni from a single piece of acrylic, the Raspberry Pi 4 Stand is as pure as it gets (and comes free with issue 90 of The MagPi magazine)

Specifications

• Dimensions: 120×20×2.8 mm

• Material: acrylic

• Weight (including one Raspberry Pi 4): 54 g

• Number of boards supported: up to 3

• Cooling method: vertical alignment

The Raspberry Pi 4 Stand is about as simple as a case could possibly be. Laser-cut from a single piece of acrylic, there’s no complex assembly required: simply slot the stand between the Power over Ethernet (PoE) header and Ethernet port of Raspberry Pi 4 and pop it on your desk.

The stand is designed to improve cooling by aligning Raspberry Pi 4 vertically, rather than flat on a desk. Previous thermal testing in issue 88 showed this is surprisingly effective, and the Raspberry Pi 4 Stand solves the stability issue which comes from balancing the board on its edge.

There’s a bonus trick up the Raspberry Pi 4 Stand’s sleeve, too: it holds up to three Raspberry Pi 4 boards side-by-side, making a very cost-effective computing cluster. Whether you install one, two, or three boards, the Raspberry Pi 4 Stand is surprisingly stable and not unattractive – and it retains access to all ports and headers.

Thermal imaging

The Raspberry Pi 4 Stand improves the bare performance, but Raspberry Pi 4 still gets hot under sustained synthetic load.

Thermal load

Without additional cooling, the Raspberry Pi 4 Stand can’t prevent Raspberry Pi 4 from hitting its throttle point during testing.

Verdict

The Raspberry Pi 4 Stand is smart, free, and the only case on test to support more than a single board. Its cooling performance, though, is the weakest.

Note: We don’t score our own products. [We think our Raspberry Pi 4 Stand is perfect – Ed.]

Designed to blend in with home theatre products, the Flirc case is undeniably attractive

Specifications

• Dimensions: 93.7×66×26.5 mm

• Material: aluminium

• Weight (including one Raspberry Pi 4): 134 g

• Number of boards supported: 1

• Cooling method: passive heatsink (SoC only)

• Extras: thermal transfer material pad

Created as a means of drawing attention away from Raspberry Pi 4 when used as part of a home theatre installation, the £16/$16 Flirc combines a matte-finish silver aluminium housing with soft-touch black plastic to the top and underside. It’s an understated design, but one which does compromise efficacy: the plastic lid covers much of the surface area of the aluminium case, reducing its ability to bleed off heat.

The case itself makes contact with Raspberry Pi 4’s system-on-chip (SoC) via a single hollow pillar and a bundled thermal interface material pad. Installation is simple, requiring only two protective sheets to be removed from the pad, and four screws to hold the case together.

For those not interested in attractive home theatre setups, though, the Flirc comes with a major drawback: it offers no ready access to the GPIO, CSI, or DSI headers, though all external ports are easily reached.

Thermal imaging

The plastic lid prevents the Flirc from cooling entirely efficiently, while the hollow pillar can be seen as a cooler spot to the centre-left.

Thermal load

Even with the lid in place, the Flirc case easily cools Raspberry Pi 4 during the synthetic workload run.

Verdict

Unless you need the GPIO, CSI, or DSI headers, the Flirc’s few design flaws are unlikely to matter: the case keeps Raspberry Pi 4 well clear of its thermal throttle point. 8/10

Impressively feature-packed, the Argon One offers a lot for your money – including temperature-controlled active cooling

Specifications

• Dimensions: 105×95.6×35 mm

• Material: aluminium

• Weight (including one Raspberry Pi 4): 230 g

• Number of boards supported: 1

• 
  Cooling method: passive heatsink (SoC, RAM), PWM fan

• Extras: thermal transfer material pads, AV daughterboard, fan, labelled GPIO header with magnetic cover, smart power board

The £19/$25 Argon One case packs a whole lot of functionality into a surprisingly small footprint. A daughterboard connects to Raspberry Pi 4’s AV and HDMI ports to re-route these to the rear of the case, alongside Ethernet and USB, while a second board pulls the GPIO header out to a colour-coded and silk-screen labelled header hidden under a magnetic cover on the top.

The same board powers a fan, which is active when the temperature exceeds a user-configurable limit, and includes a smart power button which can safely turn Raspberry Pi 4 on and off with a press. There’s even space to route out CSI and DSI cables for a camera or display.

Cooling performance is impressive. The Argon One prevented Raspberry Pi 4 from throttling without even needing to activate the fan – aided by the entire aluminium surface acting as a heatsink for the SoC and RAM chips.

Thermal imaging

There’s enough metal in the Argon One’s aluminium upper shell to keep Raspberry Pi 4 cool even under sustained load.

Thermal load

After ten minutes of heavy load, the Argon One didn’t even need to use its temperature-controlled fan once.

Verdict

There’s little to fault with the Argon One’s design. Cabling is tidied, the GPIO header made more readily accessible, and there’s more than enough aluminium to keep Raspberry Pi 4 cool.
10/10

Featuring an open-source housing for a custom-milled heatsink, CooliPi is impressively extensible

Specifications

• Dimensions: 92.4×86×54.3 mm

• Material: aluminium

• 
  Weight (including one Raspberry Pi 4): 320 g

• Number of boards supported: 1

• Cooling method: passive heatsink (SoC, RAM, USB 3.0 controller), optional fan

• Extras: case 3D print files supplied

The CooliPi stands out from the competition not just owing to its size and weight – it’s by far the heaviest case on test – but also by being at least partially open-source: while the custom-milled heatsink is available exclusively from Sensoreq, the plastic lower section can be printed on any 3D printer.

That’s only part of the story. CooliPi is a family of products, not just a case, and optional extras – some of which are also 3D printable – include a 90-degree adapter for Raspberry Pi 4’s GPIO header, a HAT mount, and even a housing for an optional 5V fan.

The latter shouldn’t be necessary outside the most extreme environments: in testing, the heavy heatsink of the CooliPi – which contacts the SoC, RAM, and USB 3.0 controller chips, with an optional copper shim available to cool the power management IC (PMIC) – was more than up to the job of cooling Raspberry Pi 4.

Thermal imaging

Having a very heavy aluminium heatsink lets the CooliPi absorb more heat than the competition.

Thermal load

The CooliPi’s large heatsink made it by far the best-performing cooler in the group.

Verdict

The CooliPi can’t be faulted on performance. Its price, however, is an issue: starting at £39/$52 for just the heatsink and case, it’s the most expensive product on test.
8/10

A compact two-part design, a few flaws don’t stop this case performing well

Specifications

• Dimensions: 88×56×22.4 mm

• Material: aluminium

• Weight (including one Raspberry Pi 4): 149 g

• Number of boards supported: 1

• Cooling method: passive heatsink (SoC only, RAM and USB 3.0 controller optional)

• 
  Extras: thermal transfer material pads, hex key

A relatively straightforward two-part design, this all-aluminium affair aims to provide cooling and protection without taking up too much space – its overall footprint is only marginally larger than Raspberry Pi 4 on its own.

There are a few issues, though, starting with its design. Like all aluminium cases, Pimoroni’s £12 ($13.20) heatsink case includes pillars designed to contact hot-running chips and transfer the heat to the outside of the case. The installation instructions, however, tell you to only add a thermal transfer pad to the one in contact with the central SoC. It turns out that this is because the RAM pillar targets a chip which doesn’t get hot, while the pillar for the USB controller is both too small and in the wrong place.

This, and a patchy anodised finish, aside, the case does as promised: it prevents Raspberry Pi 4 from throttling, and keeps all ports and headers – including GPIO, DSI, and CSI – readily accessible.

Thermal imaging

With so little metal to play with, the Pimoroni heatsink case gets noticeably warmer than the competition.

Thermal load

Even contacting only the SoC, the case keeps Raspberry Pi 4 well below its throttle point.

Verdict

The Pimoroni Heatsink Case does an acceptable job of cooling Raspberry Pi 4, but feels like a missed opportunity. Fixing the USB pillar and adding one for the PMIC (power management integrated controller) would have been welcomed.
6/10

A wholly acrylic creation, The Pi Hut’s case relies on a small always-on fan to keep Raspberry Pi 4 cool

Specifications

• Dimensions: 97.7×69.7×36.3 mm

• Material: acrylic

• Weight (including one Raspberry Pi 4): 125 g

• Number of boards supported: 1

• 
  Cooling method: fan

The Pi Hut’s £10 ($11) custom-designed Raspberry Pi 4 case comes in sheet form, laser-cut from a mixture of coloured and transparent acrylic. Assembly is relatively straightforward, though the plastic mounting pillars and screws provided can’t withstand repeated assembly and disassembly, and there are no thermal interface pads required.

Instead, cooling is provided by a single 5V cooling fan installed beneath vents in the transparent lid. By default, this is set to suck air out of the case and away; flipping it around to blow offers a minor improvement in cooling performance at the cost of a dramatic increase in noise.

There’s no software or speed control for the fan, and it ties up the 5V and GND pins on the GPIO header – which is inaccessible once assembled. The CSI and DSI headers are likewise locked away, though cables for these can at least be routed between the walls and the case lid.

Thermal imaging

The acrylic lid effectively insulates Raspberry Pi 4, leaving the fan vent as the only place for heat to escape.

Thermal load

Despite its fan, The Pi Hut case’s cooling performance is the second-worst on test – behind only the Raspberry Pi 4 Stand.

Verdict

The Pi Hut case is a cheap option. Despite including active cooling, it fails to outperform any of the passive options on test – bar only the in effect uncooled Raspberry Pi 4 Stand.
4/10

And The Winner Is…

Thermal performance isn’t the be-all and end-all of choosing a case for Raspberry Pi 4 – in fact, as our testing in issue 88 proved, under most real-world workloads Raspberry Pi 4 is more than capable of handling itself. It’s little surprise, then, to find every case on test – except the Raspberry Pi 4 Stand – passed the demanding thermal throttle benchmark with flying colours.

What is perhaps surprising is the variance within the tests. The Pi Hut case’s fan isn’t as effective as passive options like the Pimoroni Heatsink Case and the Flirc – and while the CooliPi is the best performer overall, its high price and bulk make for a difficult case to recommend for most use-cases.

Under real-world conditions, any of the cases – including the Raspberry Pi 4 Stand – should prove more than adequate to prevent thermal throttling. Only those operating Raspberry Pi 4 in relatively extreme environments need worry about cooling – and there’s nothing wrong with picking your case based on features, accessibility, price or aesthetics instead, opening up the whole group as potential winners depending on personal taste and budget.

Winner: Argon One

The Argon One ticks almost every box: it’s attractive, includes a wealth of features, cools well, and won’t break the bank.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Like a few educators in the Raspberry Pi and digital making community, Pranjali Pathak of The Pi Jam Foundation started out life as an engineer before becoming a teacher. She’s been a fellow for Teach for India, where she taught students from grade 3, and brought that experience to the Pi Jam Foundation as a program lead, making sure educators are supported when teaching computing.

“Pi Jam Foundation is a Section 8 (not-for-profit) organisation,” Pranjali tells us. “The organisation is entirely impact driven and aims to provide all students from under-resourced schools [with] computing and problem-solving skills, which are essential for them to succeed in the 21st century workplace.

“Using low-cost, open-source technology, Raspberry Pi and a contextual research-based curriculum coupled with innovative pedagogy, Pi Jam Foundation aims to provide quality computer education to over 100,000 students across India by 2022″, Pranjali explains.

“We have successfully brought a globally relevant, yet contextual computer science education to 8000+ students across under-resourced schools across urban, suburban, and rural geographies of the country.”

What are your links to Raspberry Pi?

We work extensively on Raspberry Pi [computers] across all our Pi Lab programs and feel the Code Clubs would enable us to enhance our curriculum and provide students from different grades and diverse economic backgrounds access to knowledge at par with global standards. Also, being [more] affordable than existing PCs in the market lends itself to use in the context we operate in, i.e. under-resourced public schools.

What kind of events have you put on or supported?

Pi Lab is an award-winning flagship programme that enables a complete computer science ecosystem (Raspberry Pi, best of open-source tools, and highly contextualised curriculum and teacher training programmes) that ensures year-long learning and allows kids to explore, tinker, and create. Currently, Pi Jam is impacting 8000+ number of students through 40 Pi Labs across […] the country.

The Pi Labs, especially the ones in under-resourced schools, have been places of immense transformation of thought and possibility for our students. They have seen technology and computer science as something the more privileged classes had access to, and using Raspberry Pi [computers] has helped us give them the same (if not a more focused and holistic) access.

We see career possibilities change as they experience the true creativity behind technology, and have even encountered them sharing with us that they always assumed technology to be boring, but the Code Clubs were very exciting for them to be a part of.

Every February Pi Jam holds an annual showcase known as Makers Factory. Our students are provided with a platform to present their solutions in the form of technology prototypes to problems identified by them.

We also hold hackathons for students, members of the community, mothers of the Pi Lab students, [and] individuals from corporates.

Who attends these events?

The students hail from communities that have a rich mix of people from different cultures, beliefs, and languages. A lack of resources and rampant poverty unite residents of this locality. Most of the communities are home to tens of thousands of children, many of whom lack access to good quality education.

All the students come from low income households, and a majority of their parents are first-generation migrants from other states. Additionally, most of the students do not have any formal knowledge or prior experience to computers across these schools.

Pi Jam projects

Rotten fruit detector

Rukaiya’s parents were fruit and veg sellers; however, a problem with the vendor meant some fruit was rotting and affecting the rest of the supply. Unable to inspect the boxes by eye, Rukaiya created a rotten fruit detector using a stick with an MQ3 sensor (which detects alcohol gas) on the end. This would smell any rotting fruit in the box.

Open manhole alert

During the monsoon season it’s not uncommon for autos (motorised rickshaws) to get stuck in manholes. Several students had to abandon a taxi auto at the urge of their driver and felt bad for him, so decided to create a system that warned the driver in the future of open manholes in the road ahead. It’s incredibly accurate and can even detect a manhole that is slightly tilted open.