Schlagwort: books

Digital Making at Home: Storytelling with code

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Reading Time: 3 minutes
Welcome back to Digital Making at Home from the Raspberry Pi Foundation! If you’re joining us for the first time this week, welcome: you’re now part of a global movement with other young digital makers from all over the world. You’re in great company, friend!

You all CRUSHED making your own games last week, so we’re eager to see how you take on this week’s theme: storytelling!

Digital Making at Home from the Raspberry Pi Foundation [Week 2]

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: http://rpf.io/ytsub Help us reach a wider audience by translating our video content: http://rpf.io/yttranslate Buy a Raspbe…

Tell us a story this week

We all have a story to tell, and with the power of coding and digital making, you can share your own story in your very own way with other digital makers around the world! This week, your challenge is to tell us a story using code. Maybe you want to create your own story or retell one of your favourite tales in your own way — the possibilities are endless.

And when you’ve created your story, share it with others! We’re excited to see it too, so show us what you’ve made by sending it to us to check out..

If you need some inspiration, our Raspberry Pi team is here for you! They’re all back with more code-along videos to help you explore storytelling with code.

Beginner level

Join Mr. C and his sidekick Zack as they create their own story generator in Scratch.

Digital Making at Home – Story generator (Beginner)

Go to the project guide: http://rpf.io/dm-storygen What do you think about this content? Tell us your feedback: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScM4…

Go to the free project guide (available in 19 languages).

Mr C has also recorded some extra videos showing you how to do cool extra things with your Scratch story! Find them in this week’s playlist.

Intermediate level

Christina shows you how to tell a story on a web page you build with HTML/CSS and any pictures you like.

Digital Making at Home – Tell a story (intermediate)

Go to the project guide: http://rpf.io/dm-tellastory What do you think about this content? Tell us your feedback: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc…

Go to the free project guide (available in 25 languages).

Advanced level

Code along with Marc, who creates his own online version of a classic story using more advanced HTML/CSS code and content that’s in the public domain.

Digital Making at Home – Magazine (advanced)

Go to the project guide: http://rpf.io/dm-magazine What do you think abotut his content? Tell us your feedback: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScM4…

Go to the free project guide (available in 21 languages).

Bonus level

If you want to try something else, here’s a video from a friend of ours! Meet Nick, one of our Raspberry Pi Certified Educators in the USA, as he explains how to create interactive fiction stories:

Creating Interactive Fiction in the Classroom

This is a webinar that walks teachers through the steps of creating a piece of Interactive Fiction. This is a great project to do with students who are takin…

Share your story with us!

We would love to see the story you’re choosing to tell this week! When you’re ready, enlist an adult to send us your story. Who knows, maybe we will feature it in an upcoming blog for our global community to see?

As you’re coding something new this week, we’ll be playing through your game projects from last week! We were super thrilled to see so many digital makers submit their games from all over the world: Iraq, Canada, United Kingdom, and beyond. We wonder what story you’ll tell us this week…?

Are you ready? Get set…LET’S CODE!

Share your feedback

We’d love to know what you think of Digital Making at Home, so that we can make it better for you! Please let us know your thoughts.

PS: All of our resources are available for free forever. This is made possible thanks to the generous donations of individuals and organisations. Learn how you can help too!

Website: LINK

06/04/2020
Code the Classics on sale now

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TL;DR: we made a fully automated luxury gay space communist type-in-listing book. Buy it now and get it in time for Christmas.

Back in the dawn of time, in the late 1980s, I grew up on a diet of type-in computer game listings. From the BBC Micro User Guide, to The Micro User magazine, to the ubiquitous Usborne books: an hour or two of painstaking copying and a little imagination would provide you with an experience which wasn’t a million miles away from what you could buy on the shelves of your local computer store.

Can you believe they did “Machine Code for Beginners”?

The simple act of typing in a game helped to familiarise you with a programming language (usually a dialect of BASIC), and by making mistakes you could start to understand what other, more intentional changes might accomplish. Some of the earliest games I wrote started off as heavily modified versions of type-in listings; in fact, one of these made a sneaky reappearance on this blog last year.

Fast forward to the present day, and aside from regular appearances in our own MagPi and Wireframe magazines, type-in listings have faded from view. Commercial games, even casual ones, have become much more sophisticated, beyond what you might expect to be able to enter into a computer in a reasonable amount of time. At the same time, tools like Unity remove the need to develop every title from the ground up.

But there’s still a lot to be said for the immediacy of the type-in experience. Three years ago, we asked ourselves whether we could make a type-in game listing book for the modern era. The end result, of which we’re launching the first volume today, is Code the Classics. David Crookes and Liz Upton will take you behind the scenes of the creation of five classic arcade games, and then I’ll show you how to implement a simple Python game inspired by each one.

Cavern

Substitute Soccer

Developing retro arcade games has been a hobby of mine since those early BBC Micro days, and I spent many happy evenings developing these titles, ably assisted by Andrew Gillett and Sean Tracey. It was important to us that these games be as close as possible to the standard of modern commercial casual games. With this in mind, we invited Dan Malone, famous among many other things for his work with The Bitmap Brothers, to provide graphics, and long-time game audio pro Allister Brimble to provide music and sound effects. I’ve known Dan for nearly twenty years, and have admired Allister’s work since childhood; it was an enormous pleasure to work with them, and we took the opportunity to snag interviews with them both, which you’ll also find in the book. Here’s Dan to offer you a taster.

Meet the artist behind Code the Classics

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: http://rpf.io/ytsub Help us reach a wider audience by translating our video content: http://rpf.io/yttranslate Buy a Raspberry Pi from one of our Approved Resellers: http://rpf.io/ytproducts Find out more about the #RaspberryPi Foundation: Raspberry Pi http://rpf.io/ytrpi Code Club UK http://rpf.io/ytccuk Code Club International http://rpf.io/ytcci CoderDojo http://rpf.io/ytcd Check out our free online training courses: http://rpf.io/ytfl Find your local Raspberry Jam event: http://rpf.io/ytjam Work through our free online projects: http://rpf.io/ytprojects Do you have a question about your Raspberry Pi?

We’ve pushed the boat out on the production values for the book itself too: think of it as an object from a parallel universe where Usborne made luxury hardbound coffee-table type-in listing books rather than paperbacks.

So although, like all our books, you can download this one for free, you’ll really want a physical copy of Code the Classics to have, and to hold, and to leave on your bedside table to club intruders with.

And while the listings are rather long, and fully-commented versions are available on GitHub, perhaps you should think about spending a rainy afternoon actually typing one in.

Website: LINK

13/12/2019
Get started with… Arduino?

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Yes, you read that title right, and no, you haven’t accidentally stumbled upon the Arduino Foundation’s website. Today, we’re pleased to announce a new addition to the Raspberry Pi Press family: Get Started with Arduino, a complete how-to guide to help you get hands on with the other pocket-sized board.

But why?

Why not? Our mission is to put the power of computing and digital making into the hands of people all over the world. Whether you’re using a Raspberry Pi, an Arduino, or any other piece of digital making kit, if you’re creating with tech, we’re happy. And Raspberry Pi and Arduino make wonderful project partners for all kinds of build.

What’s in the book?

Get Started with Arduino is packed full of how-tos and project tutorials to help you get better acquainted with the little blue microcontroller. Whether you’re brand new to digital making, a die-hard Raspberry Pi fan looking to expand your maker skillset, or simply a bit of a bookworm, Get Started with Arduino is a super addition to your bookshelves.

Aren’t Raspberry Pi and Arduino the same kind of thing?

Arduino is a microcontroller, while Raspberry Pi is a full computer. Microcontrollers don’t usually run a mainstream operating system, but they’re extremely power-efficient, so they can be great for projects that can’t stay plugged into the mains. You need to use a separate computer to set up your Arduino, but you can do everything on a Raspberry Pi itself… including setting up an Arduino. As we said, the two work really well together in some projects: for example, you might build a robot where the Raspberry Pi handles intensive processing tasks and provides you with a friendly environment for developing your code, while the Arduino handles precise real-time control of the motors.

Buy Get Started with Arduino today

Get Started with Arduino is out now! It’s available from the Raspberry Pi Press website with free international shipping, from the Raspberry Pi Store in Cambridge, and from WHSmith in the UK; it’ll reach Barnes & Noble stores in the US in a week or so.

Also out today…

HackSpace magazine issue #25 is also out today, available from the Raspberry Pi Press website, the Raspberry Pi Store in Cambridge, and every newsagent that’s worth its salt.

And, if that’s not enough, Wireframe magazine issue 27 is also out today, and it too is available from Raspberry Pi Press, the Raspberry Pi Store, and newsagents across the UK.

But wait, there’s more!

In case you missed it, on Monday we released Retro Gaming with Raspberry Pi, your one-stop guide to creating and playing classic retro games on your Raspberry Pi.

Did someone say free?

For getting this far in today’s blog, here’s your reward: Get Started with Arduino, HackSpace magazine, Wireframe magazine and Retro Gaming with Raspberry Pi are all available as free PDF downloads. However, when you buy our publications, you’re supporting the work of the Raspberry Pi Foundation to bring computing to everyone, as well as the continued production of even more great magazines and special edition books. So, you know what to do.

Website: LINK

21/11/2019
Get started with… Arduino?

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Reading Time: 3 minutes
Yes, you read that title right, and no, you haven’t accidentally stumbled upon the Arduino Foundation’s website. Today, we’re pleased to announce a new addition to the Raspberry Pi Press family: Get Started with Arduino, a complete how-to guide to help you get hands on with the other pocket-sized board.

But why?

Why not? Our mission is to put the power of computing and digital making into the hands of people all over the world. Whether you’re using a Raspberry Pi, an Arduino, or any other piece of digital making kit, if you’re creating with tech, we’re happy. And Raspberry Pi and Arduino make wonderful project partners for all kinds of build.

What’s in the book?

Get Started with Arduino is packed full of how-tos and project tutorials to help you get better acquainted with the little blue microcontroller. Whether you’re brand new to digital making, a die-hard Raspberry Pi fan looking to expand your maker skillset, or simply a bit of a bookworm, Get Started with Arduino is a super addition to your bookshelves.

Aren’t Raspberry Pi and Arduino the same kind of thing?

Arduino is a microcontroller, while Raspberry Pi is a full computer. Microcontrollers don’t usually run a mainstream operating system, but they’re extremely power-efficient, so they can be great for projects that can’t stay plugged into the mains. You need to use a separate computer to set up your Arduino, but you can do everything on a Raspberry Pi itself… including setting up an Arduino. As we said, the two work really well together in some projects: for example, you might build a robot where the Raspberry Pi handles intensive processing tasks and provides you with a friendly environment for developing your code, while the Arduino handles precise real-time control of the motors.

Buy Get Started with Arduino today

Get Started with Arduino is out now! It’s available from the Raspberry Pi Press website with free international shipping, from the Raspberry Pi Store in Cambridge, and from WHSmith in the UK; it’ll reach Barnes & Noble stores in the US in a week or so.

Also out today…

HackSpace magazine issue #25 is also out today, available from the Raspberry Pi Press website, the Raspberry Pi Store in Cambridge, and every newsagent that’s worth its salt.

And, if that’s not enough, Wireframe magazine issue 27 is also out today, and it too is available from Raspberry Pi Press, the Raspberry Pi Store, and newsagents across the UK.

But wait, there’s more!

In case you missed it, on Monday we released Retro Gaming with Raspberry Pi, your one-stop guide to creating and playing classic retro games on your Raspberry Pi.

Did someone say free?

For getting this far in today’s blog, here’s your reward: Get Started with Arduino, HackSpace magazine, Wireframe magazine and Retro Gaming with Raspberry Pi are all available as free PDF downloads. However, when you buy our publications, you’re supporting the work of the Raspberry Pi Foundation to bring computing to everyone, as well as the continued production of even more great magazines and special edition books. So, you know what to do.

Website: LINK

21/11/2019
Bringing a book to life with Raspberry Pi | Hello World #9

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Sian Wheatcroft created an interactive story display to enable children to explore her picture book This Bear, That Bear. She explains the project, and her current work in teaching, in the newest issue of Hello World magazine, available now.

The task of promoting my first children’s picture book, This Bear, That Bear, was a daunting one. At the time, I wasn’t a teacher and the thought of standing in front of assembly halls and classrooms sounded terrifying. As well as reading the book to the children, I wanted to make my events interactive using physical computing, showing a creative side to coding and enabling a story to come to life in a different way than what the children would typically see, i.e. animated retellings.

The plan

Coming from a tech-loving family, I naturally gravitated towards the Raspberry Pi, and found out about Bare Conductive and their PiCap. I first envisaged using their conductive paint on the canvas, enabling users to touch the paint to interact with the piece. It would be some sort of scene from the book, bringing some of the characters to life. I soon scrapped that idea, as I discovered that simply using copper tape on the back of the canvas was conductive enough, which also allowed me to add colour to the piece.

I enlisted the help of my two sons (two and five at the time) — they gladly supplied their voices to some of the bears and, my personal favourite on the canvas, the ghost. The final design features characters from the book — when children touch certain areas of the canvas, they hear the voices of the characters.

The back of the canvas, covered in copper tape

Getting the project up and running went pretty smoothly. I do regret making the piece so large, though, as it proved difficult to transport across the country, especially on the busy London Underground!

Interactivity and props

The project added a whole other layer to the events I was taking part in. In schools, I would read the book and have props for the children to wear, allowing them to act out the book as I read aloud. The canvas then added further interaction, and it surprised me how excited the children were about it. They were also really curious and wanted to know how it worked. I enjoyed showing them the back of the canvas with all its copper tape and crocodile clips. They were amazed by the fact it was all run on the Raspberry Pi — such a tiny computer!

The front of the interactive canvas

Fast-forward a few years, and I now find myself in the classroom full-time as a newly qualified teacher. The canvas has recently moved out of the classroom cupboard into my newly developed makerspace, in the hope of a future project being born.

I teach in Year 3, so coding in Python or using the command line on Raspbian may be a little beyond my students. However, I have a keen interest in project-based learning and am hoping to incorporate a host of cross-curricular activities with my students involving the canvas.

I hope to instil a love for digital making in my students and, in turn, show senior leaders what can be done with such equipment and projects.

A literacy project

This work really lends itself to a literacy project that other educators could try. Perhaps you’re reading a picture book or a more text-based piece: why not get the students to design the canvas using characters from the story? The project would also work equally well with foundation subjects like History or Science. Children could gather information onto the canvas, explaining how something works or how something happened. The age of the children would influence the level of involvement they had in the rest of the project’s creation. The back end could be pre-made — older children could help with the copper tape and wiring, while younger children could stop at the design process.

Part of the project is getting the children to create sounds to go with their design, enabling deeper thinking about a story or topic.

It’s about a collaborative process with the teacher and students, followed by the sharing of their creation with the broader school community.

Get Hello World magazine issue 9 for free

The brand-new issue of Hello World is available right now as a free PDF download from the Hello World website.

UK-based educators can also subscribe to receive Hello World as printed magazine FOR FREE, direct to their door. And those outside the UK, educator or not, can subscribe to receive free digital issues of Hello World in their inbox on the day of their release.

Head to helloworld.raspberrypi.org to sign up today!

Website: LINK

23/07/2019
Philip Colligan wants your books (for our library)

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You may have heard the news that the Raspberry Pi Foundation recently took up residence in a new location. And unlike previous offices, the new building offers up more room for members of the team to work and learn, including the yet-to-be-named library.

(I’ll have thought of name by the end of this blog post.)

The Raspberry Pi Foundation library

At the moment, the library is home to copies of books written by members of the team, issues of The MagPi, Wireframe, and HackSpace magazine, Project Books, Essentials Guides, and various other related publications.

However, on a recent visit in the Foundation office from Raspberry Pi Trading, I was accosted by Foundation CEO Philip Colligan and asked if I could put out the following request to our community.

We’d like your books

Philip would like to ask you whether you have any old books about coding, such as the classic Usborne series, or aged user manuals or games listings that you don’t need anymore and could donate to our library!

This call also goes out to anyone who has written a book about coding and would like to see their work on our shelves.

Immortality for all

I asked Philip what people can expect in return for donating a book, and he said the following:

So be sure to include your return address so we can send you some stickers as a thank you for your donation.

Send your books

If you have a book you’d like to donate, please send it to the address below. And if we receive double-ups of any publications, we promise to put them to good use by passing them on to local libraries or coding clubs so that others can experience the iconic books of our childhoods.

The Philip Colligan Library of Solitude and Reflection
Raspberry Pi Foundation
37 Hills Road
Cambridge
CB2 1NT
United Kingdom

Website: LINK

30/11/2018
A list of Raspberry Pi books for #BookLoversDay
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While yesterday’s blog post covered YouTubers who create video tutorials about using the Raspberry Pi, today we want to focus on a more traditional medium in honour of #BookLoversDay.

Since we launched the Raspberry Pi back in 2012, staff and community members alike have been writing guides and projects books about our little green board, with some releasing them as free PDFs and others donating a portions of the revenue to the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Here are a few of our favourite books, written by our colleagues and you, our glorious community.

Getting started

For beginners just entering the world of Raspberry Pi, there is no end of ‘Getting started’ resources available online. For those of you who want a physical reference work, or who plan on giving a Raspberry Pi as a gift, here are some of the best beginners’ guides available:

Almost all of us will have at least one for Dummies book lying around at home. Easy to read and full of information, the series is a go-to for many. The third edition of the Raspberry Pi for Dummies book came out in late 2017, and you can read the first two chapters on co-author Sean McManus’s website.

The Raspberry Pi User Guide was co-written by Eben Upton, creator of the Raspberry Pi and co-founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. So it’s fair to say that the information in this guide comes directly from the horse’s mouth…so to speak. You can read an excerpt of the book on the publisher’s website.

For younger users, Carrie Anne Philbin’s Adventures in Raspberry Pi is both an introduction guide and project book, taking young beginners from the basics of setting up and using their Raspberry Pi through to trying out coding and digital making projects. Now in its third edition, the book is available in both paperback and e-book format.

You may also like:

Projects

If you’re looking for some projects to try out, whether they be Scratch or Python, screen-based or physical, the following books will help you get making:

Simon Monk has been writing tutorials and producing Raspberry Pi kits for both beginners and advanced makers. With his Raspberry Pi Cookbook, Simon has written over 200 ‘practical recipes’ for you to try with your Raspberry Pi.

Forget James Bond. If you’d rather be working for the dark side, try Donald Norris’ Raspberry Pi Electronics Projects for the Evil Genius* and build everything you need to take over the world.

*Swivel chair and fluffy white cat not included.

More inspirational rather than instructive, Creative Projects with Raspberry Pi by Kirsten Kearney and Will Freeman is a gorgeous coffee table book of Raspberry Pi projects from across the globe. From small gadgets to art installations and robots to weather stations, if this book doesn’t get your creative juices flowing, nothing will.

You may also like:

Computer science

Computer science is more than just writing code and lighting LEDs. If you’d like to learn more about the history and science behind STEM, these books are marvelous resources for the inquisitive mind:

Those wishing to go deeper into learning programming should check out The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas. Some consider it the classic go-to for novice programmers, with many veterans returning to it when they need a reminder of best practices in the field.

History buffs may want to look into Jacquard’s Web: How a Hand-Loom Led to the Birth of the Information Age by James Essinger. This book explores the development of technology, from the invention of the handloom by Joseph-Marie Jacquard in Napoleonic France to technological advancements of the digital age.

With its lighthearted fun mixed with historical events, the Eisner Award–nominated The Thrilling Adventures Of Lovelace And Babbage by Sydney Padua is a Pi Towers favourite, and should be the staple of every STEM enthusiast’s book collection. In fact, we’re sure that even those with no interest in the field will find this collection of stories entertaining. So there’s really no reason not to try it.

You may also like:

Magazines

If you’re looking for a periodical or two, may we suggest:

The MagPi, the official Raspberry Pi magazine. Available in both hardcopy and free digital PDF every month, The MagPi covers community projects and tutorials as well as Raspberry Pi–related add-on tech. You may also be interested in the MagPi Essentials Guides, written by community members to help you advance in various areas of Raspberry Pi creativity.

Hello World, the magazine for educators, is released termly and includes articles and advice from STEM educators across the globe. UK-based educators can get Hello World delivered free to their door, and everyone can download the free PDFs from the Hello World website.

HackSpace magazine covers more than just the Raspberry Pi. Consider it the maker magazine, covering a wide variety of different topics, skills, and techniques. An interesting monthly read that your eager hobbyist mind will love…but your wallet and free space/time, not so much. It’s out in both hardcopy and as a free PDF each month.

You may also like:
- AQUILA — while not specifically STEM-related, AQUILA will keep young minds engaged and inquisitive
- WIRED — WIRED offers a broad taste of emerging technologies and more
- The Beano — OK, so it’s not STEM, but c’mon, the Beano is awesome!
Add to the list

If you have a favourite book that we’ve left out, let us know so we can add it. Maybe you have a childhood classic that first got you into coding, or a reference guide you go back to again and again. So tell us in the comments which books we have missed!

Website: LINK
09/08/2018
Happy Birthday, Harry Potter: wizard-worthy Pi projects

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Today marks Harry Potter’s 38th birthday. And as we’re so, so very British here at Raspberry Pi, we have no choice but to celebrate the birth of The Boy Who Lived with some wonderfully magical projects from members of the community.

Build your own Daily Prophet

After a trip to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Piet Rullens Jr wanted to build something special to remember the wonderful time he and his wife had at the amusement park.

Daily Prophet poster with moving object

Daily Prophet with moving object

Piet designed and printed his own front page of The Daily Prophet, and then cut out a photo and replaced it with our Official Touch Display. The Raspberry Pi hidden behind it runs a short Python script that responds to input from a motion sensor by letting the screen play video footage from their wizarding day whenever someone walks by.

Read more about Piet’s project on our blog here, and in The MagPi here.

Wizard duelling

Since Allen Pan is known for his tech projects based on pop culture favourites, it’s no surprise that he combined a Raspberry Pi and Harry Potter lore to build duelling gear. But where any of us expecting real spells with very real consequences such as this?

Real Life Harry Potter Wizard Duel with ELECTRICITY | Sufficiently Advanced

Harry Potter body shocking wands with speech recognition…It’s indistinguishable from magic! With the release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, we took magic wands from Harry Potter to create a shocking new game. Follow Sufficiently Advanced! https://twitter.com/AnyTechnology https://www.facebook.com/sufficientlyadvanced https://www.instagram.com/sufficientlyadvanced/ Check out redRomina: https://www.youtube.com/user/redRomina Watch our TENS unit challenge!

When a dueller correctly pronounces one of a collection of wizard spells, their opponent gets an electric shock from a Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) machine.

Learn more about how the Raspberry Pi controls this rather terrifying build here, and remember: don’t try this at home — wizard duels are reserved for the Hogwarts Great Hall only!

Find family members with the Weasley clock

Curious as to where your family members are at any one time? So was Pat Peters: by replacing magic with GPS technology, Pat recreated the iconic clock from the home of the Weasley family.

But how does it work? Over to Pat:

This location clock works through a Raspberry Pi, which subscribes to an MQTT broker that our phones publish events to. Our phones (running the OwnTracks GPS app) send a message to the broker whenever we cross into or out of one of our waypoints that we have set up in OwnTracks; this then triggers the Raspberry Pi to run a servo that moves the clock hand to show our location.

Find more information, including links to the full Instructables tutorial, on our blog.

Play Wizard’s Chess!

Motors and gears and magnets, oh my! Bethanie Fentiman knows how to bring magic to Muggles with her Wizard’s Chess set.

We bet ten shiny Sickles that no one has ever finished reading/watching Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and not wanted to play Wizard’s Chess. Pieces moving by magic, Knights attacking Pawns — it’s entertaining mayhem for the whole family. And while Bethanie hasn’t managed to get her pieces to attack one another (yet), she’s got moving them as if by magic down to a fine art!

Learn more about Bethanie’s Wizard’s Chess set here, where you’ll also find links to the Kent Raspberry Jam community where Bethanie volunteers.

Find your house with the Sorting Hat

Whether you believe yourself to be a Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, or Ravenclaw, the only way to truly know is via the Hogwarts Sorting Hat.

Our free resource lets you code your own Sorting Hat to establish once and for all which Hogwarts house you really belong to.

I’m a Gryffindor, by the way. [Editor’s note: Alex is the most Gryffindor person I’ve ever met.]

Create a wand-controlled lamp

Visitors to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter may have found themselves in possession of souvenir interactive wands that allow them to control various displays throughout the park. Upon returning from a trip, Sean O’Brien and his daughters began planning how they could continue to use the wands at home.

They soon began work on Raspberry Potter, an automation project that uses an infrared camera and a Raspberry Pi to allow their wands to control gadgets and props around their home.

Incedio

Lumos

Nox

Find the full tutorial for the build here! And if you don’t have a wand to hand, here are Allen Pan and William Osman making their own out of…hotdogs?!

Hacking Wands at Harry Potter World

How to make your very own mostly-functional interactive wand. Please don’t ban me from Universal Studios. Links on my blog: http://www.williamosman.com/2017/12/hacking-harry-potter-wands.html Allen’s Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVS89U86PwqzNkK2qYNbk5A Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/williamosman Website: http://www.williamosman.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/williamosmanscience/ InstaHam: https://www.instagram.com/crabsandscience/ CameraManJohn: http://www.johnwillner.com/

You’re a project theme, Harry

We’re sure these aren’t the only Harry Potter–themed Raspberry Pi makes in the wild. If we’ve missed any, or if you have your own ideas for a project, let us know! We will never grow tired of Harry Potter projects…

Website: LINK

31/07/2018
17 Amazing Pictures of Sculptures Carved Directly Into Books

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Guy Laramee has been known to create some amazing lifelike landscapes, architecture, and iconic sites from stacks of books, and what you’re looking at above is his latest work, titled „Adieu“. Some know that after 244 years, Encyclopedia Britannica will cease printing their famous book sets. So, Guy decided to pay tribute by taking an old 24-volume set and transforming it into a mountain range.

04/01/2014
Author Tom Clancy has died at age 66

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Tom Clancy, the best-selling author of techno-thrillers Clear and Present Danger and Patriot Games, died last night in a Baltimore hospital at the age of 66, his publisher has confirmed. Clancy was best known for creating the iconic character Jack Ryan and for the startling authenticity he gave to descriptions of military technology and strategy.

Clancy launched his writing career with The Hunt for Red October in 1984, which garnered a positive review from President Ronald Reagan (who called it a “perfect yarn”). By the time his second novel Red Storm Rising was released in 1986, some military officials suspected that Clancy had gained access to classified information on weaponry, but in fact, he had just pieced together the information through extensive research and informed guesswork. The author was also noted for his “Guided Tour” nonfiction series that explored military machinery in detail.

In addition to his popular novels and spin-off series, Clancy’s work made its way to the big screen in a number of high-profile projects. CIA analyst Jack Ryan, the central character in Clancy’s most popular works, has been portrayed by big-name stars: Alec Baldwin in the 1990 film version of Red October; Harrison Ford in 1992′sPatriot Games and 1996′s Clear and Present Danger; and Ben Affleck in the 2002 film The Sum of All Fears. A fifth film Jack Ryan: Shadow One is slated for release this year with Chris Pine in the titular role.

“Spending time with Tom prior to shooting was the best part of that whole experience for me,” says Baldwin, the first Jack Ryan, in a statement to EW. “Tom was smart, a great story teller and a real gentleman.”

Penguin Group (USA)’s executive David Shanks, who was involved in the publication of every Clancy book, said in a statement, “I’m deeply saddened by Tom’s passing. He was a consummate author, creating the modern-day thriller, and was one of the most visionary storytellers of our time. I will miss him dearly and he will be missed by tens of millions of readers worldwide.”

Ivan Held, President and Publisher of G.P. Putnam’s Sons says, “It was an honor to know Tom Clancy and to work on his fantastic books. He was ahead of the news curve and sometimes frighteningly prescient. To publish a Tom Clancy book was a thrill every time. He will be missed by everyone at Putnam and Berkley, and by his fans all over the world.

Clancy’s 17th novel Command Authority is slated for a December 2013 publication.

Official Source: http://shelf-life.ew.com/2013/10/02/tom-clancy-dead/

02/10/2013