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OmBURo is an Arduino-controlled unicycle robot with an active omnidirectional wheel

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OmBURo is an Arduino-controlled unicycle robot with an active omnidirectional wheel

Arduino Team — February 4th, 2020

Omni wheels normally contain a number of rollers arranged on their circumference, allowing them to slide left and right and perform various tricks when combined with others. The rollers on UCLA researchers Junjie Shen and Dennis Hong’s OmBURo, however, are quite different in that they are actually powered, enabling a single wheel to accomplish some impressive feats on its own.

These powered rollers give OmBURo the ability to move in both longitudinal and lateral directions simultaneously, balancing as a dual-axis wheeled inverted pendulum.

Control is accomplished via an Arduino Mega along with an IMU and encoders for its two servo motors —one tasked with driving the wheel backwards and forwards, the second for actuating the rollers laterally via helical gears and a flexible shaft.

As seen in the video below, the robot can follow different paths via remote control, and even balance on an inclined plane. More informaton on the impressive build is available in the Shen and Hong’s research paper here.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avtlx1-X3lo?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

A mobility mechanism for robots to be used in tight spaces shared with people requires it to have a small footprint, to move omnidirectionally, as well as to be highly maneuverable. However, currently there exist few such mobility mechanisms that satisfy all these conditions well. Here we introduce Omnidirectional Balancing Unicycle Robot (OmBURo), a novel unicycle robot with active omnidirectional wheel. The effect is that the unicycle robot can drive in both longitudinal and lateral directions simultaneously. Thus, it can dynamically balance itself based on the principle of dual-axis wheeled inverted pendulum. This letter discloses the early development of this novel unicycle robot involving the overall design, modeling, and control, as well as presents some preliminary results including station keeping and path following. With its very compact structure and agile mobility, it might be the ideal locomotion mechanism for robots to be used in human environments in the future.

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04/02/2020
Is upgrade culture out of date?
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At Raspberry Pi, we’re interested in all things to do with technology, from building new tools and helping people teach computing, to researching how young people learn to create with technology and thinking about the role tech plays in our lives and society. Today, I’m writing about our habit of replacing devices with newer versions just for the sake of it.

Technology is involved in more of our lives than ever before: most of us carry a computer in our pocket everywhere we go. On the other hand, the length of time for which we use each individual piece of technology has grown very short. This is what’s referred to as upgrade culture, a cycle which sees most of us replacing our most trusted devices every two years with the latest products offered by tech giants like Apple and Samsung.

How we got to this point is hard to determine, and there does not seem to be a single root cause for upgrade culture. This is why I want to start a conversation about it, so we can challenge our current perspectives and establish fact-based attitudes. I think it’s time that we, as individuals and as a collective, examine our relationship with new technology.

What is the natural lifespan of a device?

Digital technology is still so new that there is really no benchmark for how long digital devices should last. This means that the decision power has by default landed in the hands of device manufacturers and mobile network carriers, and for their profit margins, a two-year lifecycle of devices is beneficial.

Where do you see your role in this process as a consumer? Is it wrong to want to upgrade your phone after two years of constant use? Should phone companies slow their development, and would this hinder innovation? And, if you really need to upgrade, is there a better use for your old device than living in a drawer? These questions defy simple answers, and I want to hear what you think.

How does this affect the environment?

As with all our behaviours as consumers, the impact that upgrade culture has on the environment is an important concern. Environmental issues and climate change aren’t anything new, but they’re currently at the forefront of the global conversation, and for good reason.

Mobile devices are of course made in factories, and the concerns this raises have been covered well in many other places. The same goes for the energy needed to build technology. This energy could, at least in theory, be produced from renewable sources. Here I would like to focus on another aspect of the environmental impact device production has, which relates to the materials necessary to create the tiny components that form our technological best friends.

Some components of your phone cannot be created without extremely rare metals and other elements, such as silicon and lithium. (In fact, there are 83 stable non-radioactive elements in the periodic table, and 70 of them are used in some capacity in your phone.) Upgrade culture means there is high demand for these materials, and deposits are becoming more and more depleted. If you’re hoping there are renewable alternatives, you’ll be disappointed: a study by researchers working at Yale University found that there are currently no alternative materials that are as effective.

Then there’s the issue of how the materials are mined. The market trading these materials is highly competitive, and more often than not manufacturers buy from the companies offer the lowest prices. To maintain their profit margin, these companies have to extract as much material as possible as cheaply as they can. As you can imagine, this leads to mining practices that are less than ethical or environmentally friendly. As many of the mines are located in distant areas of developing countries, these problems may feel remote to you, but they affect a lot of people and are a direct result of the market we are creating by upgrading our devices every two years.

Many of us agree that we need to do what we can to counteract climate change, and that, to achieve anything meaningful, we have to start looking at the way we live our lives. This includes questioning how we use technology. It will be through discussion and opinion gathering that we can start to make more informed decisions — as individuals and as a society.

The obsolescence question

You probably also have that one friend/colleague/family member who swears by their five year old mobile phone and scoffs at the prices of the newest models. These people are often labeled as sticklers who are afraid to join the modern age, but is there another way to see them? The truth is, if you’ve bought a phone in the last five years, then — barring major accidents — it will most likely still function and be just as effective as it was when it came out of the box. So why are so many consumers upgrading to new devices every two years?

Again there isn’t a single reason, but I think marketing departments should shoulder much of the responsibility. Using marketing strategies, device manufacturers and mobile network carriers purposefully make us see the phones we currently own in a negative light. A common trope of mobile phone adverts is the overwrought comparison of your current device with a newly launched version. Thus, each passing day after a new model is released, our opinion of our current device worsens, even if it’s just on a subconscious level.

This marketing strategy is related to a business practice called planned obsolescence, which sees manufacturers purposefully limit the durability of their products in order to sell more units. An early example of planned obsolescence is the lightbulb, invented at the Edison company: it was relatively simple for the company to create a lightbulb that lasted 2500 hours, but it took years and a coalition of manufacturers to make a version that reliably broke after 1000 hours. We’re all aware that the lightbulb revolutionised many aspects of life, but it turns out it also had a big influence on consumer habits and what we see as acceptable practices of technology companies.

The widening digital divide

The final aspect of the impact of upgrade culture that I want to examine relates to the digital divide. This term describes the societal gap between the people with access to, and competence with, the latest technology, and the people without these privileges. To be able to upgrade, say, your mobile phone to the latest model every two years, you either need a great degree of financial freedom, or you need to tie yourself to a 24-month contract that may not be easily within your means. As a society, we revere the latest technology and hold people with access to it in high regard. What does this say to people who do not have this access?

Inadvertently, we are widening the digital divide by placing more value on new technology than is warranted. Innovation is exciting, and commercial success is celebrated — but do you ever stop and ask who really benefits from this? Is your new phone really that much better than the old one, or could it be that you’re mostly just basking in feeling the social rewards of having the newest bit of kit?

What about Raspberry Pi technology?

Obviously, this blog post wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t share our perspective as a technology company as well. So here’s Raspberry Pi Trading CEO Eben Upton:

On our hardware and software

“Raspberry Pi tries very hard to avoid obsoleting older products. Obviously the latest Raspberry Pi 4 runs much faster than a Raspberry Pi 1 (something like forty times faster), but a Raspbian image we release today will run on the very earliest Raspberry Pi prototypes from the summer of 2011. Cutting customers off from software support after a couple of years is unethical, and bad for business in the long term: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. The best companies respect their customers’ investment in their platforms, even if that investment happened far in the past.”

“What’s even more unusual about Raspberry Pi is that we aim to keep our products available for a long period of time. So you can’t just run a 2020 software build on a 2014 Raspberry Pi 1B+: you can actually buy a brand-new 1B+ to run it on.”

On the environmental impact of our hardware

“We’re constantly working to reduce the environmental footprint of Raspberry Pi. If you look next to the USB connectors on Raspberry Pi 4, you’ll see a chunky black component. This is the reservoir capacitor, which prevents the 5V rail from dropping too far when a new USB device is plugged in. By using a polymer electrolytic capacitor, from our friends at Panasonic, we’ve been able to avoid the use of tantalum.”

“When we launched the official USB-C power supply for Raspberry Pi 4, one or two people on Twitter asked if we could eliminate the single-use plastic bag which surrounded the cable and plug assembly inside the box. Working with our partners at Kuantech, we found that we could easily do this for the white supplies, but not for the black ones. Why? Because when the box vibrates in transit, the plug scuffs against the case; this is visible on the black plastic, but not on the white.”

Raspberry Pi power supply with scuff mark

“So for now, if you want to eliminate single-use plastic, buy a white supply. In the meantime, we’ll be working to find a way (probably involving cunning origami) to eliminate plastic from the black supply.”

What do you think?

Time for you to discuss! I want to hear from you about upgrade culture.
- When was the last time you upgraded?
- What were your reasons at the time?
- Do you think upgrade culture should be addressed by mobile phone manufacturers and providers, or is it caused by our own consumption habits?
- How might we address upgrade culture? Is it a problem that needs addressing?
Share your thoughts in the comments!

Upgrade culture is one of the topics for which we offer you a discussion forum on our free online course Impact of Technology. For educators, the course also covers how to facilitate classroom discussions about these topics, and a new course run has just begun — sign up today to take part for free!

The Impact of Technology online course is one of many courses developed by us with support from Google.

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04/02/2020
How to overclock Raspberry Pi 4
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You’ll need

Warning! Crash likely!

Experimenting to find the highest stable overclock involves crashing Raspberry Pi 4. There is a chance of corrupting the microSD card. Experiment with a clean Raspbian installation and ensure no important data is at risk.

Getting started

Although 1.5GHz is its maximum speed, Raspberry Pi typically idles at 600MHz and switches to the maximum speed when needed. Overclocking is the process of setting a higher maximum speed for computer components. We can adjust the settings in config.txt to overclock both the CPU and GPU (graphics processing unit).

We’ve experimented with speeds up to 2.147GHz for the CPU and 750MHz for the GPU (up from its 500MHz default). These are the kinds of speeds found on high-end desktop computers.

Your mileage will vary and, if Raspberry Pi gets too hot, it will slow right down. Experimenting with overclocking will crash Raspbian, and there is a high chance your Raspberry Pi will refuse to start at some point. If programs start crashing, or Raspbian refuses to start, you will need to dial back on the speed. But overclocking is fun and potentially a way to get more from Raspberry Pi.

1. Use a Raspberry Pi 4 Stand

We start by placing Raspberry Pi 4 in a vertical position. This improves airflow around the components and is surprisingly effective at keeping the temperature down.

Use the Raspberry Pi 4 Stand on the front of the print edition of The MagPi issue 90 to run Raspberry Pi in a vertical position. If you don’t have a Raspberry Pi 4 Stand, you can 3D-print or laser‑cut your own with the files on our GitHub page.

Alternatively, place your Raspberry Pi inside a case designed to manage its CPU temperature.

2. Update Raspberry Pi 4

Make sure you are running the latest version of Raspbian OS. Tweaks to performance are being made all the time and you will hit faster speeds with the latest software.

Open a Terminal and enter the following:
```
sudo apt update
sudo apt dist-upgrade
```
Now reboot the system:
```
sudo reboot
```
This restarts Raspbian.

3. Watch your speed

Before we start overclocking, take a look at the default CPU speed. Open a Terminal and enter: cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq

Terminal will probably return 600000. Divide this result by 1000 and you’ll get the speed in MHz. This is the base speed: 600MHz (or 0.6GHz). This is the speed requested by the kernel. If your Raspberry Pi is being throttled due to low voltage or over temperature, the actual CPU speed may be lower.

To get the actual speed, enter:
```
vcgencmd measure_clock arm
```
As you use your Raspberry Pi, the requested speed will boost to its upper level, which is 1500000. You can keep entering vcgencmd in Terminal to see where it’s currently at, but it’s better to use the watch command to monitor the speed.
```
watch -n 1 vcgencmd measure_clock arm
```
This keeps vcgencmd running as a process and updates the result once per second (the -n 1 option is the interval in seconds). Start using your Raspberry Pi and you’ll soon see the result go slightly above 1500000 (or 1.5GHz).

4. Overclock your config

We’re going to use the config.txt file to set a new upper limit for the clock frequency. Open another Terminal window and enter: sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Scroll down to the section marked:
```
#uncomment to overclock the arm. 700 MHz is the default.
#arm_freq=800
```
And change the settings to:
```
#uncomment to overclock the arm. 700 MHz is the default.
over_voltage=2
arm_freq=1750
```
Save the file with CTRL+O (press RETURN) and use CTRL+X to exit Nano.

Restart your Raspberry Pi.
```
sudo reboot
```
When the system starts up again, watch vcgendcmd again to see your new, faster clock speed in action:
```
watch -n 1 vcgencmd measure_clock arm
```
Browse a few webpages and you’ll see speeds around 1750000000 (or 1.75GHz).

5. Understanding over_voltage

The over_voltage command adjusts the core CPU/GPU voltage, and accepts figures between -16 and 8. The default value is 0.

A faster CPU speed demands higher voltage and, if Raspberry Pi doesn’t get enough volts, you will see a small lightning bolt appearing in the top right of the window (at this point, the CPU will be reduced to the 700MHz default speed).

6. Crank it up

Let’s try taking things a little faster. We’re going to take the over_voltage setting to 6 and set the ARM CPU to 2.0GHz. Edit the config.txt file with the following settings:
```
over_voltage=6
arm_freq=2000
```
This is as high as we’re going to take over_voltage.

Reboot the Raspberry Pi and you’ll be running at 2.0GHz. Run watch -n 1 vcgencmd measure_clock arm again to see the new upper limit.

7. Take it to the max

Now we’re going to boost the gpu_freq and take the CPU to its highest setting. This enables Raspberry Pi to run at its current maximum speed. Use Nano to edit the config.txt file again, this time setting the arm_freq to 2147 and gpu_freq to 750:
```
over_voltage=6
arm_freq=2147
gpu_freq=750
```
The gpu_freq oversees a range of settings:  core_freq, h264_freq, isp_freq, and v3d_freq. The core_freq setting adjusts the frequency of the GPU processor. It influences CPU performance because it drives the L2 cache and memory bus.

The default value is 500, and 750 is the highest we can set it and still had a Raspberry Pi 4 run. We have also had Raspberry Pi 4 boards fail to boot at this speed, and others quickly slowed down from overheating or undervoltage. You are unlikely to be able to maintain this speed for the long term and your mileage will vary.

Save the file and exit Nano (CTRL+O and CTRL+X). Reboot and your Raspberry Pi is hopefully running as fast as it can.

8. Recover from black screen

We have started a Raspberry Pi at speeds of up to 2.147GHz but some of our devices failed to boot, and others showed Undervoltage Warnings (thus reducing the speed). Eventually, we settled for arm_freq=2000 in config.txt. Our engineering team told us that the benefits from gpu_freq are marginal at best, and it should be removed if Raspberry Pi 4 fails to boot.

Your Raspberry Pi will also probably fail to boot at some point when overclocking. See ‘Overclocking problems’ (below) for more information on recovery. Otherwise, have fun and we hope you’ve enjoyed this excursion into overclocking.

Top tip: Monitoring voltage

It is essential to keep the supply voltage above 4.8 V for reliable performance. Note that the voltage from some USB chargers/power supplies can fall as low as 4.2 V. This is because they are usually designed to charge a 3.7 V LiPo battery, not to supply 5 V to a computer.

To monitor Raspberry Pi’s PSU voltage, you will need to use a multimeter to measure between the VCC (5 V) and GND pins on the GPIO. More information is available on the Raspberry Pi website.

Top tip: Overclocking problems

Most overclocking issues show up immediately with a failure to boot. If this occurs, hold down the SHIFT key during the next boot. This will temporarily disable all overclocking, allowing you to boot successfully and then edit your settings.

Alternatively, remove the microSD card from your Raspberry Pi and insert it into another computer. You will be able to access the config.txt file and adjust the settings from there.

Firmware warning icons

Under certain circumstances, the Raspberry Pi firmware will display a warning icon on the display, to indicate an issue. If you see these icons routinely appearing, you should reduce the overclocking speed.

There are currently three icons that can be displayed:

Undervoltage warning

If the power supply to the Raspberry Pi drops below 4.63 V (+/-5%), this lightning bolt icon is displayed.

Over temperature warning (80–85°C)

If the temperature of the SoC is between 80°C and 85°C, this icon is displayed. The ARM core(s) will be throttled back in an attempt to reduce the core temperature.

Over temperature warning (over 85°C)

If the temperature of the SoC is over 85°C, this icon is displayed. The ARM core(s) and the GPU will be throttled back in an attempt to reduce the core temperature.
04/02/2020
This Arduino device turns on a workshop’s air filtration system whenever it hears a saw

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This Arduino device turns on a workshop’s air filtration system whenever it hears a saw

Arduino Team — February 3rd, 2020

Modern woodworking tools are amazing, allowing you to make any number of useful or decorative objects from the comfort of your garage. Unfortunately, they also produce a lot of dust, so YouTuber “Atomic Dairy” came up with the idea to install an air purifier that can cleanse the shop air eight times per hour. This only works if turned on, so he automated its operation with an Arduino Uno and a solid-state relay (SSR).

The AudioBot system uses a microphone to listen for loud noise, indicating that a saw is on and thus dust creation. When detected, the Arduino then signals the SSR to run for two hours to literally clear the air.

There’s also a start button and RF control unit to trigger the fan for an hour or add an hour to the current run time, which is displayed on a small LCD screen. A stop button cuts off the filter immediately when needed.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keLmohaZByE?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

Our Fanboy wood shop air filter is an overpowered air cleaner that we run whenever we are cutting or sanding wood projects in the shop, which is often. The AudioBot is an Arduino device that turns the Fanboy on whenever it hears us using a large tool like a table saw or miter saw. That’s right, it works by sound! This relieves us of the tedious task of plugging in the Fanboy when we work and remembering to unplug it a couple hours after we finish in the shop.

Could we just have bought a timer to use with the Fanboy? Yes. But it wouldn’t be sound activated and wouldn’t have all of the cool LEDs we have on the AudioBot. Plus the AudioBot only cost around $30 and it was REALLY fun to build. So in our shop the AudioBot is better than any commercial timer we could have gotten.

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03/02/2020
Make a Spy Hunter-style scrolling road | Wireframe #31

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Raspberry Pi’s own Mac Bowley shows you how to make the beginnings of a top-down driving game inspired by 1983’s Spy Hunter.

Spy Hunter was one of the very first games with both driving and shooting.

Spy Hunter

The 1983 arcade classic Spy Hunter put players at the wheel of a fictitious Interceptor vehicle and challenged them to navigate a vertically scrolling road, destroying enemy vehicles.

Here, I’ll show you how you can recreate the game’s scrolling road to use in your own driving games. The road will be created using the Rect class from Pygame, with the road built from stacked rectangles that are each two pixels high.

Making the scrolling road in Python

First, I create two lists; one to hold the pieces of road currently being drawn on screen, and another to hold a queue of pieces that will be added as the road scrolls. To create the scrolling road effect, each of the current pieces of road will need to move down the screen, while a new piece is added to the end of the list at position y = 0.

Pygame can schedule functions, which can then be called at set intervals – meaning I can scroll my road at a set frame rate. The scroll_road function will achieve this. First, I loop over each road piece, and move it down by two pixels. I then remove the first item in the queue list and append it to the end of the road. The Pygame clock is then set to call the function at intervals set by a frame_rate variable: mine is set to 1/60, meaning 60 frames per second.

Our code snippet provides a solid basis for your own top-down driving game. All you need now are weapons. And a few other cars.

My road can either turn left or right, a random choice made whenever the queue is populated. Whichever way the road turns, it has to start from the same spot as the last piece in my queue. I can grab the last item in a list using -1 as an index and then store the x position; building from here will make sure my road is continuous. I use a buffer of 50 pixels to keep the road from moving off the edge of my screen – each time a turn is made, I check that the road doesn’t go beyond this point.

I want the turn amount to be random, so I’m also setting a minimum turn of 200 pixels. If this amount takes my car closer than the buffer, I’ll instead set the turn amount so that it takes it up to the buffer but no further. I do this for both directions, as well as setting a modifier to apply to my turn amount (-1 to turn left and 1 to turn right), which will save me duplicating my code. I also want to randomly choose how many pieces will be involved in my turn. Each piece is a step in the scroll, so the more pieces, the longer my turn will take. This will make sure I have a good mix of sharp and elongated turns in my road, keeping the player engaged.

Here’s Mac’s code snippet, which creates a winding road worthy of Spy Hunter in Python. To get it working on your system, you’ll need to install Pygame Zero. And to download the full code, go here.

Speeding up the game

To make things more exciting, the game can also be speeded up by decreasing the frame_rate variable. You could even gradually increase this over time, making the game feel more frantic the further you get.
Another improvement would be to make the turns more curvy, but make sure you’re comfortable with algebra before you do this!

Get your copy of Wireframe issue 31

You can read more features like this one in Wireframe issue 31, available now at Tesco, WHSmith, all good independent UK newsagents, and the Raspberry Pi Store, Cambridge.

Or you can buy Wireframe directly from Raspberry Pi Press — delivery is available worldwide. And if you’d like a handy digital version of the magazine, you can also download issue 31 for free in PDF format.

Make sure to follow Wireframe on Twitter and Facebook for updates and exclusive offers and giveaways. Subscribe on the Wireframe website to save up to 49% compared to newsstand pricing!

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03/02/2020
DARVA: The Event Assistant

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Felt fusion

Enter DARVA, a cute little animated robot who just loves to chat, and who runs off a Raspberry Pi 4. Dane says, “DARVA was made by first cutting and sewing all the separate parts of the robot out of felt. Then we took a picture of all these robot parts and cut them out using photo editing software […]. To bring DARVA to life, we created a webpage (with HTML canvas and JavaScript) to which we added all these photographs and animated them.”

Over the period of a week or two, Dane and Nicole’s idea really took shape. The most difficult part of the project was the touchscreen orientation: “As the felt robot is standing upright, we thought it would be best to use the screen in portrait mode,” says Nicole. “Whilst you can easily change the screen rotation on Raspberry Pi, the touchscreen still worked in landscape mode; the mapping between where you touched the screen and where you clicked was wrong.” After a lot of trial and error, they decided to keep Raspberry Pi running in landscape and just rotated all the animations.

Digital deputy

They have also worked hard to ensure that DARVA has a lifelike quality, and introduced a degree of randomness to the robot’s actions. “The gauge rotates to a random position, for example, and the eyes randomly look left or right for a random amount of time,” says Nicole. DARVA also loops through a series of texts that Dane and Nicole have written to give some more information about their booth at events, while some animations are activated by clicking or touching parts of the screen, including DARVA’s head and belly.

So, how have people reacted to their new digital sidekick? Dane tells us there was some initial confusion at one event: “We placed the original felt version of DARVA next to the touchscreen, because we thought it would be interesting to show how we went from a felt robot to a digital one. However, a lot of people thought the felt robot and the touchscreen were somehow connected and could interact, which was confusing because moving or touching the felt didn’t do anything.” However, DARVA has received a lot of compliments: “Kids especially loved the look and feel of it.”

Dane and Nicole are considering developing the project further. “Maybe we can make it a video game, or an interactive story, or connect the felt robot to the digital robot as many people expected,” says Nicole. “We have so many ideas, we hardly know what we eventually will end up making, but one thing is for sure: it will involve a Raspberry Pi!”

03/02/2020
LoRa made easy: Connect your devices to the Arduino IoT Cloud

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LoRa made easy: Connect your devices to the Arduino IoT Cloud

Arduino Team — January 31st, 2020

An important new feature is now available in the Arduino IoT Cloud — full support for LoRa® devices!

LoRa® is one of our favorite emerging technologies for IoT because it enables long-range and low power transmission of data without using cellular or WiFi connections. It’s a very powerful and promising technology but it comes with its own complexity. In our pursuit to make IoT easier, we’ve already released a few products that enable anyone to build a LoRa® device (or a fleet of LoRa® devices!). Thanks to the Arduino MKR WAN 1310 board, combined with the Arduino Pro Gateway, you can create your own LoRaWAN™ network. But we have decided to do more than that, and it’s time to release one more important piece…

The Arduino IoT Cloud now provides an incredibly easy way to collect data sent by your LoRa® devices. With a few clicks, the IoT Cloud will generate a sketch template for the boards that you can adapt to read data from your sensors, pre-process it as you want, and then send it to the IoT Cloud. With a few more clicks (no coding required), you’ll be able to create a graphical dashboard that displays the collected data in real-time and lets users see their history through charts and other widgets. You will not need to worry about coding your own compression, serialization and queueing algorithm, as it will all be done under the hood in a smart way — you’ll be able to transmit multiple properties (more than five), pushing the boundary beyond the packet size limits of LoRaWAN™!

This is our take on edge computing — you program the device to collect and prepare your data locally, and then we take care of shipping such data to a centralized place.

Such a simplified tool for data collection is already quite innovative, but we decided to take it an important step further. All the available solutions for LoRa® currently focus on collecting data, but they do not address it from the other way round i.e. sending data from a centralized application to the LoRa® device(s). Arduino IoT Cloud now lets you do this — you’ll be able to control actuators connected to your device by sending messages via LoRa®, with no coding needed.

Build and control your own LoRaWAN™ network with Arduino IoT Cloud, the Pro Gateway, and the new and improved MKR WAN 1310 board that features the latest low-power architecture to extend the battery life and enable the power consumption to go as low as 104uA.

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31/01/2020
Vulkan is coming to Raspberry Pi: first triangle

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Following on from our recent announcement that Raspberry Pi 4 is OpenGL ES 3.1 conformant, we have some more news to share on the graphics front. We have started work on a much requested feature: an open-source Vulkan driver!

Vulkan

Standards body Khronos describes Vulkan as “a new generation graphics and compute API that provides high-efficiency, cross-platform access to modern GPUs”. The Vulkan API has been designed to better accommodate modern GPUs and address common performance bottlenecks in OpenGL, providing graphics developers with new means to squeeze the best performance out of the hardware.

First triangle

The “first triangle” image is something of a VideoCore graphics tradition: while I arrived at Broadcom too late to witness the VideoCore III version, I still remember the first time James and Gary were able to get a flawless, single-tile, RGB triangle out of VideoCore IV in simulation. So, without further ado, here’s the VideoCore VI Vulkan version.

First triangle out of Vulkan

Before you get too excited, remember that this is just the start of the development process for Vulkan on Raspberry Pi. While there have been community efforts in the direction of Vulkan support (originally on VideoCore IV) as far back as 2018, Igalia has only been working on this new driver for a few weeks, and we still have a very long development roadmap ahead of us before we can put an actual driver in the hands of our users. So don’t hold your breath, and instead look forward to more news from us and Igalia as they make further development progress.

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31/01/2020
Pirate Audio Headphone Amp

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Raspberry Pi has its fair share of DAC audio boards offering high-quality sound output, but Pimoroni’s new Pirate Audio range adds a mini LCD to show music track details and album art. In this review we’re focusing on the Pirate Audio Headphone Amp, but we also tried out the other three models: Line‑out, 3W Stereo Amp, and Speaker. We understand that another model is also set to be added to the range soon.

All the boards have the same slimline pHAT form factor that fits perfectly onto a Raspberry Pi Zero, although they’ll work with any 40-pin model. The main difference between them is how the sound is processed and output. On the Headphone Amp, audio is amplified and then output via a 3.5 mm jack – just plug in your wired headphones or earbuds. The positioning of the jack on the side of the board means you may need to take your Raspberry Pi out of its case, or raise it up using a booster header.

Setting it up

Getting started with Pirate Audio wasn’t quite as simple as we anticipated, although an online guide (magpi.cc/pirateaudioguide) has since appeared that should prove very helpful. Installing the default software itself is simple enough, by entering three commands in a Terminal window. This does everything needed to configure the DAC and enable SPI for the LCD.

Based around the Mopidy music server daemon, the software enables you to play local music files or stream tracks from Spotify, although you’ll need a premium account for that. The Spotify extension for Mopidy is installed automatically, along with one for the user-friendly Iris web interface.

The latter proves essential as you’ll need to use it to actually start playing music on the board. Point a web browser to your Raspberry Pi’s IP address appended with ‘:6680/iris’ to access the web interface – you can do this from another computer or on the same Raspberry Pi if it’s connected to a monitor.

Accessing local media files required a change to the Mopidy config file to reassign the local directory from the default to our Music folder, then running a local scan in Iris to find the files.

For Spotify streaming, you’ll first need to authorise the device via the Mopidy website, alter the config file to enable Spotify and add your credentials, and then sign in again via Iris to start using Spotify from its interface.

Tip: if you still get an error when trying to play files, try restarting the server from Iris’s settings.

Music to our ears

The good news is that once you get everything set up, the Pirate Audio board’s 24-bit, 192kHz DAC delivers excellent sound quality with a warm tone, plenty of fine detail, and sufficient bass for our ears. At first, we found it a bit too loud – until we flicked the switch on the rear of the board from high- to low-gain (recommended in most cases).

The volume level can be adjusted using two tiny control buttons on either side of the LCD. The other two buttons present are for play/pause and skip to next track in the queue, album, or playlist – there’s no way of returning to previous songs unless you use the web interface.

We do love that built-in LCD, though, which shows you the track details on a background of the blurred album artwork, with a song progress bar at the bottom.

Pirate Audio range
Line-Out

Aimed for use with powered speakers or by connecting to a hi-fi line input, it features line-level digital audio and a 3.5 mm stereo jack.

3W Stereo Amp

This board features four tiny push-fit terminals on the rear to attach wires from passive speakers. There’s also a switch for stereo and mixed-down mono modes.

Speaker

At only 1W, the small built-in speaker isn’t very powerful and sounds rather tinny, but this board is ideal when you need integral audio for a portable project.

Specifications

Audio processing:  PCM5100A DAC (24-bit / 192kHz), PAM8908 amplifier chip
Data bus:  I2S for audio, SPI for LCD
Display:  240×240 IPS colour LCD
Audio out:  3.5 mm stereo jack
Controls:  four tactile buttons

Verdict

A little tricky to get it all working, but once set up, the resulting audio is of excellent quality and the LCD is great for showing track details and artwork.
9/10

31/01/2020
The Synthfonio is a guitar-shaped MIDI instrument

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The Synthfonio is a guitar-shaped MIDI instrument

Arduino Team — January 30th, 2020

Learning to play an an instrument well takes a lot of time, which many people don’t have. To address this, Franco Molina — who enjoys MIDI controllers and writing music, but describes himself as being terrible at playing the keyboard — created the Synthfonio.

Molina’s DIY device is vaguely reminiscent of a guitar, with a series of keys on the neck that indicate the chords and key signatures, and another set roughly positioned where you’d strum a guitar to play the notes.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHLOiu6qr9E?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

The Synthfonio is assembled from laser-cut MDF sections, and utilizes a MKR WiFi 1010 to take care of I/O and MIDI functions. A second microcontroller in the form of an ATmega328 on a breadboard is used to produce actual synth sounds, though most Arduinos would be suitable either function.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebnr9OELv9g?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

The Synthfonio features 2 sets of keys, one to define chords and key signatures, and another one to actually play the notes. Whatever chord is pressed in the instruments neck keys, will define the pitch of the keys on the instrument handle. Similar to a guitar, violin, and other string instruments; with the added advance that the Synthfonio is a smart device that can deduce the chords being played from a single set of notes. This way, for example, the musician can use the handle keys to play chords, melodies, and arpeggios in the key of A, just by pressing the A key on the neck. In the same way, pressing the A key on the neck in conjunction with the C key (minor third of A) will activate an A minor tonality for the handle keys.

This can allow any player to execute a 4-chord melody, accompaniment, or even improvisation; with no more than one or two fingers in position.

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30/01/2020
Arduino Pro IDE v0.0.4-alpha is here!
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Arduino Pro IDE v0.0.4-alpha is here!

Arduino Team — January 30th, 2020
Our dev team has some more exciting news to share: Arduino Pro IDE v0.0.4-alpha has been released.

Highlights include:
- Automatic Arduino language server (LS) recovery. From now on, if the LS process terminates, it restarts automatically.
- Updated the bundled Clang version to 9.0.0. Bundled Clangd into the application for all supported platforms.
- Better keybinding support for the upload, verify, and the serial monitor.
You can download the latest version here.

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30/01/2020
Free Raspberry Pi 4 Stand, overclocking guide, and cooling case testing in The MagPi 90

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Build the ultimate Magic Mirror

When it comes to relatively easy Raspberry Pi projects, that produce impressive results, few are better than making a Magic Mirror.

Combine a stock Raspberry Pi touchscreen display with observation glass and a wooden frame, and you get an incredibly impressive mirror that displays information in white letters.

Our new Magic Mirror feature shows you how to build the device, and also use modules to add extra features such as voice control.

How to overclock Raspberry Pi

Get more power from your Raspberry Pi 4 with our guide to overclocking. Use your free Raspberry Pi 4 Stand to hold your Raspberry Pi vertically and edit the config file to run Raspberry Pi at speeds over 2.0GHz.

Raspberry Pi cooling case group test

There are many options for keeping Raspberry Pi 4 cool, but which ones are ice cold and which are lukewarm? That’s what we tasked Gareth Halfacree to find out. In this month’s The MagPi he turns his now near-famous thermal gun to a range of Raspberry Pi cooling cases.

3D-print a keyring with BlocksCAD

BlocksCAD is a visual programming language that enables you to design your own 3D printed objects. In this month’s The MagPi magazine, we take a look at using BlocksCAD to build a keyring.

Upcycling a Sony Walkman into WeatherMan

We’ve got the best Raspberry Pi projects in The MagPi, and we’re particularly enamoured with this latest offering by Martin Mander. The masterful maker has used Raspberry Pi to give a Sony Walkman a new lease of life. Say hello to WeatherMan, the portable weather forecasting device.

Raspberry Pi Recovery Kit

There are many laptop projects for Raspberry Pi, but we’re particularly smitten with this rugged build. Raspberry Pi Recovery Kit puts Raspberry Pi inside a weather-resistant case designed to work in some of the world’s most hostile environments.

Plus! Win one of five Raspberry Pi and black Official Case kits.

The MagPi is available as a free digital download, or you can purchase a print edition online or in stores.

30/01/2020
Free Raspberry Pi 4 cooling stand with The MagPi 90!

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Reading Time: 3 minutes
In issue 88 of The MagPi, we discovered that Raspberry Pi 4 can be kept cooler than usual if placed on its side. This gave us an idea, and thanks to many Top People, it resulted in the small, simple, and very practical Raspberry Pi 4 stand that you will find on the cover of all physical copies of The MagPi 90.

Content Warning

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To complement this gift, we also got heat tester extraordinaire Gareth Halfacree to put the stand and several cooling cases through their paces to see just how well they can keep Raspberry Pi 4 nice and cool.

The stand also has an extra benefit: you can place three Raspberry Pis in it at once! A good idea if you plan to do a little cluster computing with a few Raspberry Pi 4s.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall…

While the Raspberry Pi 4 stand is a pretty big deal all by itself, issue 90 of The MagPi also includes a guide to building the ultimate smart mirror — including a bit of voice control!

While a magic mirror may not show you who the fairest of them all is (I can answer that question for you: it’s me), our guide will definitely show you the easiest way to set up your own magic mirror. It’ll be straightforward, thanks to the complete step-by-step tutorial we’ve put together for you.

Projects and more!

Feeling the urge to make something new with Raspberry Pi? Then take a look at our amazing selection of project showcases, and at a feature of some easy starter projects to help you get inspired. All this, along with our usual selection of reviews, tutorials, and community news, in The MagPi 90!

Get The MagPi 90 today

You can get The MagPi issue 90 online in our store with international delivery available, or from the Raspberry Pi Store in Cambridge and all good newsagents and supermarkets. You can also access The MagPi magazine via our Android and iOS apps.

The stand is available with print copies of the magazine

Don’t forget our amazing subscription offers either, which include a gift of a Raspberry Pi Zero W when you subscribe for twelve months.

And, as with all our Raspberry Pi publications, you can download this issue as a free PDF from our website.

Website: LINK

30/01/2020
Free Raspberry Pi 4 cooling stand with The MagPi 90!

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Reading Time: 3 minutes
In issue 88 of The MagPi, we discovered that Raspberry Pi 4 can be kept cooler than usual if placed on its side. This gave us an idea, and thanks to many Top People, it resulted in the small, simple, and very practical Raspberry Pi 4 stand that you will find on the cover of all physical copies of The MagPi 90.

Content Warning

No Description

To complement this gift, we also got heat tester extraordinaire Gareth Halfacree to put the stand and several cooling cases through their paces to see just how well they can keep Raspberry Pi 4 nice and cool.

The stand also has an extra benefit: you can place three Raspberry Pis in it at once! A good idea if you plan to do a little cluster computing with a few Raspberry Pi 4s.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall…

While the Raspberry Pi 4 stand is a pretty big deal all by itself, issue 90 of The MagPi also includes a guide to building the ultimate smart mirror — including a bit of voice control!

While a magic mirror may not show you who the fairest of them all is (I can answer that question for you: it’s me), our guide will definitely show you the easiest way to set up your own magic mirror. It’ll be straightforward, thanks to the complete step-by-step tutorial we’ve put together for you.

Projects and more!

Feeling the urge to make something new with Raspberry Pi? Then take a look at our amazing selection of project showcases, and at a feature of some easy starter projects to help you get inspired. All this, along with our usual selection of reviews, tutorials, and community news, in The MagPi 90!

Get The MagPi 90 today

You can get The MagPi issue 90 online in our store with international delivery available, or from the Raspberry Pi Store in Cambridge and all good newsagents and supermarkets. You can also access The MagPi magazine via our Android and iOS apps.

The stand is available with print copies of the magazine

Don’t forget our amazing subscription offers either, which include a gift of a Raspberry Pi Zero W when you subscribe for twelve months.

And, as with all our Raspberry Pi publications, you can download this issue as a free PDF from our website.

Website: LINK

30/01/2020
144 7-segment displays make up this delightful digital clock

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144 7-segment displays make up this delightful digital clock

Arduino Team — January 29th, 2020

Using 7-segment displays to make a clock is nothing new, but what if you combined 144 of them together to create an epic LED timepiece? That’s exactly how this project was made, allowing it to show surprisingly smooth mega-numbers and a colon set at an angle.

The build itself is controlled by an Arduino Nano, along with an RTC module for timekeeping and 18 MAX7219 drivers to activate over a thousand (1,008) individual segments.

One could see this used for a variety of purposes, perhaps as a scoreboard for sporting events, a scrolling display, or even as 36 little clocks, which can actually be seen below.

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29/01/2020
144 7-segment displays make up this delightful digital clock

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144 7-segment displays make up this delightful digital clock

Arduino Team — January 29th, 2020

Using 7-segment displays to make a clock is nothing new, but what if you combined 144 of them together to create an epic LED timepiece? That’s exactly how this project was made, allowing it to show surprisingly smooth mega-numbers and a colon set at an angle.

The build itself is controlled by an Arduino Nano, along with an RTC module for timekeeping and 18 MAX7219 drivers to activate over a thousand (1,008) individual segments.

One could see this used for a variety of purposes, perhaps as a scoreboard for sporting events, a scrolling display, or even as 36 little clocks, which can actually be seen below.

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You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Website: LINK

29/01/2020
Build your own first-person shooter in Unity

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Raspberry Pi Press is back with a new publication: this time, it’s Wireframe’s time to shine, with Build Your Own First-Person Shooter in Unity.

BUILD YOUR OWN first-person shooter game in Unity || Wireframe magazine

Ever fancied creating your own first-person shooter game? Now you can with Wireframe’s brand new, 140-page bookazine, which positively heaves with tutorials and advice from expert video game developers!

Could you build a video game?

We’ve all had that moment of asking ourselves, “I wonder if I could do this?” when playing a video game. Whether as a child racing friends in Mario Kart, or in more recent years with vast open-world masterpieces, if you like games, you’ve probably thought about designing and building your own.

So, why don’t you?

With the latest publication from Wireframe and Raspberry Pi Press, you can learn how to use Unity, free software available to download online, to create your very own first-person shooter. You could build something reminiscent of DOOM, Wolfenstein, and all the other games you tried to convince your parents you were old enough to play when you really weren’t (who knew blurry, pixelated blood could be so terrifying?).

Build Your Own First-Person Shooter in Unity

Build Your Own First-Person Shooter in Unity leads you step-by-step through the process of making the game Zombie Panic – a frenetic battle for survival inside a castle heaving with the undead.

You’ll learn how to set up and use all the free software you’ll need, make enemies that follow and attack the player, create and texture 3D character models, and design levels with locked doors and keys.

You’ll also get tips and advice from experts, allowing you to progress your game making beyond the tutorials in the book.

Get your copy now!

Build Your Own First-Person Shooter in Unity is available now from the Raspberry Pi Press online store with free worldwide shipping, from the Raspberry Pi Store in Cambridge, and as a free download from the Wireframe website.

Wait, a free download?

Yup, you read correctly. Build Your Own First-Person Shooter in Unity can be downloaded for free as a PDF from the Wireframe website. We release free PDF versions of our books and magazines on the day they’re published; it means as many people as possible can get their hands on high-quality, up-to-date information about computing, programming and making.

However, when you buy our publications, you help us produce more great content, and you support the work of the Raspberry Pi Foundation to bring computing and digital making to people all over the world. We offer a variety of subscription options, including some terrific free gifts. And we make sure our publications are printed to feel good in your hands and look good on your bookshelf.

So, buy Build Your Own First-Person Shooter in Unity if you can – thank you, you’re amazing! And if not, grab the free PDF. Whichever you choose, we hope you make an awesome game. Don’t forget to share it with us on our social media channels.

Website: LINK

29/01/2020
Win one of five ProtoDock add-ons!

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Save 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

29/01/2020
Win one of five ProtoDock add-ons!

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Reading Time: < 1 minute
Save 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

29/01/2020
Give your memory a boost with Newrons

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Give your memory a boost with Newrons

Arduino Team — January 28th, 2020

When you get a notification on your smartphone, more often than not, you’re doing something more pressing. You then silence the alarm, and perhaps forget about it. Nick Bild, however, has created a pair of smart glasses that take a new “look” at things by instead giving you a notification when you’re staring at an appropriate item.

For instance, as demonstrated in the demo below, if your calendar says to “Go for a walk,” the Newrons would light up when you’re glancing at a pair of sneakers.

The prototype is controlled by an Arduino Nano 33 IoT, which connects to the Google Calendar API over WiFi to view your schedule. Object recognition is taken care of with a JeVois A33 machine vision camera and notifications are shown on an LED.

More details can be found in Bild’s write-up here.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8D3Lubc3Jo?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

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28/01/2020
“The Arduino lie detector determined that was a lie”

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“The Arduino lie detector determined that was a lie”

Arduino Team — January 28th, 2020

Want to know if someone is telling you the truth? Well, unfortunately Juan Gg’s “USB Polygraph” isn’t a professional product and won’t actually give you an answer. However, it is a neat exploration into biometrics that incorporates Arduino, some sensors, and data visualization.

The DIY lie detector does measure one’s galvanic skin response, pulse, and breathing, so it’s an interesting way to observe “suspects” when questioned. Perhaps one could even use it to monitor a person’s vitals when performing various physical activities.

The device collects sensor readings via an Arduino Uno. These are then passed along to a nearby computer over serial, which graphs everything using a custom Python program.

If you’d like to make your own, code and mechanical files are available on GitHub!

This is a USB Polygraph, which I designed and built as a classroom project on June 2018. The hardware side is pretty simple, an Arduino UNO collects data from some sensors and sends it via serial. On the computer, a Python program takes that data and not only graphs it, but it also allows the user to save it, manages questions and adds question and answer markers to the graphs so results can later be inspected. All results are saved in .txt files.

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28/01/2020
50 Raspberry Pi 4 Tips and Tools: pt 1

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Whether you are new to making with Raspberry Pi or have been at it for years, there are always new tools and techniques to be learned. For the new arrival to the making community, this list will be a great resource to introduce you to tools that you may not have heard of before, and a short cut to get to the bits of software that work best for Raspberry Pi projects. If you’ve been doing this for a while, you may want to count how many of these tools are already in your makerspace. If you get to 50, you probably need a bigger makerspace.

Warning

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

1. 3D printer

The 3D printer is a fairly recent addition to the maker scene. To be able to print something solid a few years ago was like science fiction, but now it’s a reality. Printers come in many sizes and prices, so you can match your printer to your budget and requirements. There are several choices for filament too, such as PLA (a good beginner’s choice) or ABS and many other more specialised types. If you have the time and patience, you can get a small unassembled one for less than £100, but for better quality (and less frustration) you may want to spend a bit more.

Affordable 3D printing

Download a copy of The MagPi 69 to learn all about affordable 3D printing.

2. Breadboard

Breadboards are solderless circuit boards and allow for fast prototyping of projects. The boards come in several sizes and consist of a matrix of small connector holes into which components and jumper wires can be inserted to make circuits. Click here for our breadboard tutorial.

3. Speaker

Some projects need to make a noise, and the sound quality depends on the type of speaker you use. There are small piezoelectric speakers if all you need are beeps and pops; alternatively, you may need a larger dynamic speaker.

4. LEDs

LEDs (light-emitting diodes) are a bit like very small and efficient light bulbs. They glow when current is passed through them, but they need to be connected correctly. Because they are diodes, the current only flows one way, unlike in conventional light bulbs.

5. Resistors

Resistors are used in electrical circuits to reduce current flow. They are used for many reasons, including changing the brightness of an LED. They can be a fixed value, with stripes to indicate the resistance; or variable, with a slider or dial to change the resistance.

6. Motors

When a current is applied to an electric motor, a spindle in the centre rotates. It spins because of an electromagnetic field that is caused by the flow of current. Motors come in all kinds of sizes, from mini drone motors to industrial ones.

7. Diodes

Diodes are known as semiconductors because they only conduct electricity in one direction. This can be useful for a number of reasons; for example, to protect your Raspberry Pi from being damaged if you are connecting it to motors.

8. Sensors

There are many types of electronic sensors. You may want to detect light or vibration, sound, or heat. There are sensors for all of these and many more. Sensors allow us to capture data about the world around us.

9. Code editor

There are several code editors for Raspberry Pi. IDLE used to be the standard Python editor in Raspbian, but now you might want to give Thonny or Geany a go. If you are feeling adventurous, you could try installing PyCharm.

10. SSH and VNC

If you want to run your Raspberry Pi headless (without monitor, keyboard, and mouse), you will probably want to connect to it by typing in commands using SSH, which provides a terminal, or you can have a windowed version with VNC.

Tools for building & prototyping

11. Clamps

For holding bits of your build together until it’s stuck or you need to change it.

12. Crocodile clips

Connect one component to another without soldering, tape, or breadboard.

13. Crimping tool

Pinches connectors onto wire, fixing it to the connector. Can also can cut/strip wires.

14. Screwdrivers

You’re going to need several different screwdrivers of different sizes/types.

15. Craft knife

Stanley knives are good for most work, but you might also want something lighter.

16. Tweezers

Tweezers can get you out of a fix when that little screw disappears.

17. Hot glue gun

Sometimes there is no substitute, but it’s not suitable for the young ’uns.

18. Hand drill

Most of the time a cordless is best.

19. Saw

Hacksaws for metal/plastic parts, jigsaw/circular for big builds, mitre saws for angles.

20. Pliers

A good set of long-nose/snipe-nose pliers should be on hand at all times.

21. Etcher

Because your Raspberry Pi generally relies on being booted from an operating system on a microSD card, you will require a way to write that data first. The open-source program you need for this is called Etcher from Balena.

22. Gears and wheels

If you are making any sort of moving robot, you’re probably going to need wheels or gears. Some kits come with them, such as the CamJam EduKit 3. You can buy them separately or even 3D-print them.

Tools for storage

23. USB stick

Add extra storage to your Raspberry Pi with a USB thumb drive. You can store more files than the microSD card, and you can transfer files from another computer to your Raspberry Pi.

24. Memory card

Make sure you have multiple microSD cards. An 8GB microSD card can be used to install Raspbian and other operating systems. It’s a good idea to have your regular microSD card and at least one other card for testing out projects.

25. Storage box

When making projects, you quickly rack up additional kit – not to mention cables, components, and Raspberry Pi boards. Keep everything in one place by adding a storage box to your shopping list.

28/01/2020