Schlagwort: raspberrypi

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Enter, PiFi, a simple kit that allows you to easily create a fast and secure wireless network with just a Raspberry Pi.

The kit comes with just three items: a microSD card with the software preloaded, an Ethernet cable to plug into the nearest router, and the all-important Wi-Fi dongle that handles a lot of the heavy lifting for the wireless.

External vs internal

When plugged into a USB 3.0 socket, the wireless dongle is actually faster than the internal wireless on Raspberry Pi 4 when utilised as an access point – PiFi reckons it’s up to eight times faster, and in our tests it was definitely running noticeably faster for internal speeds.

Set up is a doddle – you literally just plug everything in and turn Raspberry Pi on. You can then connect via the smartphone app, set up a new admin password, and you’re done. There’s extra settings you can start digging around in, and you can even tunnel through a VPN if you have one. By default, WireGuard is available for connecting to a VPN; however, OpenVPN can be selected in the VPN tab of the app.

Plug and play

While PiFi is still fairly new, the documentation is very robust. Access to the latter is made available straight from the app if you fancy diving deeper into the configuration – and there’s quite a lot of depth to it, to the point where you might break some stuff. Luckily, there’s a clever hardware reset involving unplugging the dongle and waiting a minute or so before plugging it back in.

The range is fine. You won’t be replacing your home router with something like this, but it can easily work to bring better Wi-Fi to a room or corner of the house if you have a spare LAN port available. And, as we said before, it’s definitely coming with us to all future Airbnbs.

Verdict

9/10

A very good piece of kit that simplifies portable access points, with good enough wireless range to boot.

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“I was inspired to create the Hackberry Pi Zero about three years ago when I found a project about reverse-engineering on Hackaday,” Zitao says. “I thought it would be really cool to have a device with a thumb keyboard, so I began reverse-engineering old BlackBerry keyboards and made it technically work. I then saw a project called Beepberry and thought it would be super-cool to create a similar device with a different BlackBerry keyboard. I basically looked to use the same design but mount a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W instead.”

Well-connected

Beepberry – or Beepy as it’s now known – is a versatile device designed primarily to run various messaging services via the chat app Beeper. Created by Eric Migicovsky, who founded the Pebble smartwatch, Beepy uses the keyboard of a BlackBerry Classic and a Raspberry Pi Zero W. It allows access to Linux, which can be viewed on a 2.7-inch black and white LCD display.

“My start point was to design a learning tool for Linux beginners like me, but also address the pain points from the Beepberry such as using a display with a backlight and adding external USB ports,” Zitao says. It’s why the Hackberry Pi Zero has three USB 2.0 ports, made possible thanks to the use of an internal hub. “As the project progressed, I found it would also be cool to add a STEMMA-style I2C port for communicating with sensors. In this way, beginners can learn to code with Python.”

The device also has an external TF card slot so that the operating system image can be replaced very easily. Flip the device onto its back and you’ll find Zitao has added three compartments as well. One of these can be opened to reveal Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, giving users easy access. The other two house a pair of swappable batteries and, in keeping with the mobile phone theme, these take Nokia BL-5C rechargeable lithium-ion packs. You’re able to replace them within ten seconds without killing the power.

Key to success

Of all of the components, the keyboard is arguably the most eye-catching and Zitao says the choice of BlackBerry keys was rather straightforward. “The BlackBerry keyboards are known to be good quality and they offer a great typing experience,” he notes. “The optical trackpad from a BlackBerry keyboard can work as a mouse too and this also offers a very good user experience. The choice of keyboard influenced the size of the screen because I needed them to fit alongside each other.” As it happens, it’s a perfect fit.

Zitao hasn’t stuck to using just one BlackBerry Qwerty keyboard. Although he initially chose to incorporate one from the BlackBerry Classic (or Q20), a smartphone that was unveiled in 2014, he has also created another device that makes use of the keyboard from a Q10 (unveiled the previous year). He has also developed a third variant – one that uses a keyboard from the BlackBerry Porsche Design P’9983. And there has been scope for a bit of fun.

One of the devices Zitao has made features a set of colourful buttons showing a circle, triangle, cross, and square, which gamers will instantly spot as having been inspired by Sony’s PlayStation controller. “I actually started making a Bluetooth keyboard variant of the BlackBerry keyboards about six months ago and at that time the top row of keys were the original BlackBerry-style keys,” he says. “Then a customer suggested I try PlayStation-like buttons. I found they fitted very well and were easy to print.”

Mapping the way

The keyboards needed a bit of work in order to get them to operate with Raspberry Pi – notably, hooking them up to a keyboard controller which uses a RP2040 chip. There’s an analogue button which needs to be switched on so that the keyboard controller communicates with Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. If it is turned off, another device can be connected to the USB-C port – a PC keyboard, perhaps – and that will be used to communicate with Raspberry Pi instead.

It’s also possible to customise the keymap. “I chose the open-sourced firmware QMK to power the keyboard through the USB interface and one benefit for that is the user can remap the keyboard layout if they want by using the Vial app,” Zitao explains. “The BlackBerry keyboard only has about 40 keys so I designed three layers for the keyboard, which means each key can be mapped into three symbols or letters.”

The remapping tool vial is basically a web app and Zitao says Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W doesn’t have enough power to open it due to its limited RAM. “I designed a USB-KVM on board to make the keyboard controller chip able to communicate with the external computer so the customer can edit the keymap on their computer,” he adds. “At the same time, the hardware can make the Hackberry Pi Zero work as an emergency keyboard.”

It certainly works well. Hackers are likely to use Kali Linux – an advanced penetration testing distro for ethical hacking and network security assessments – but Zitao just likes to play around. “I’ve used the devices to learn coding with Python, learn the Linux command-line terminal, and to play some retro games. It really is a lot of fun.”

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The latest edition of The MagPi covers all the new products in depth, with detailed specifications, documentation, and interviews with the CM5 engineer. We’ve also got information on the new Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W, Raspberry Pi Hub, and Raspberry Pi Connect service.

There’s a lot of new products this month and we haven’t forgotten about the makers. This month’s mag is also packed with projects, from a Hackberry Pi to an Adventure Time electric guitar.

Priority Boarding is back!

Raspberry Pi 500 is in high demand. Subscribers to The MagPi can buy a Raspberry Pi 500 first with our Priority Boarding scheme. Take out a subscription to The MagPi and you’ll get a code via email to skip the line and get your Raspberry Pi 500 computer.

Introducing Compute Module 5 

Compute Modules make it easier for embedded customers to build custom products using Raspberry Pi hardware. Compute Module 5 puts all the power of Raspberry Pi 5 into an embeddable, programmable board that can be placed inside a development product.

Hackberry Pi Zero

This project takes an original keyboard from a BlackBerry phone and combines it with an ultra-modern Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and 4-inch display.

Adventure Time Guitar

Raspberry Pi 5 is “the beating heart” of this impressive Adventure Time Self-Playing Guitar which features programmable buttons, custom speakers, and a touchscreen.

Get started with Raspberry Pi

It’s that time of the year when we welcome a new generation of makers to Raspberry Pi. Find out how to connect everything up, run an OS, and start using your Raspberry Pi with our guide to desktop computing and digital making.

Build your own streaming server 

This month KG builds a specialised LibreELEC-based Kodi box so our TV can talk to a server we build in issue 148.  We look at receiving those streams beyond the web interface by building a streaming media receiver box for your TV

Micro Journal

This Raspberry Pi Zero 2-based computer offers distraction-free writing Micro Journal is a modern solution with a nostalgic twist with all the charm of a vintage typewriter and delicious clicky Cherry MX keys.

You’ll find all this and much more in the latest edition of The MagPi magazine. Pick up your copy today from our store, or subscribe to get every issue delivered to your door.

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We’ve been looking forward to the new Raspberry Pi Monitor for ages now – the inexpensive and lightweight display is perfect for so many uses, whether you’re in a classroom, at your desk, or on the go. We have five to giveaway, and you can enter the competition below…

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Wax differs from most existing music managers in three ways. Instead of individual tracks, music is catalogued as ‘works’ – such as an album, a symphony, an opera, etc. Secondly, works are categorised by genre, but it also allows you to tag works in a way that is relevant to the genre too; symphonic works can include composer and conductor, while pop music comes with the group and title.

The final feature is that it will start playing music as soon as you’ve given it enough requirements (in the form of metadata), which you can then change on the fly.

Multi-core wonder

Wax is specifically designed for Raspberry Pi 4 because of its quad-core processor. “Wax uses one core to run the user interface, one for playing, one for ripping, and the fourth for time-consuming tasks like fetching metadata from the cloud, like MusicBrainz and Cover Art Archive,” Jeffrey says. “Many audiophiles worry needlessly that burdening a processor involved in playing a sound file can impair the quality of the sound it produces. The multi-processing architecture of Wax obviates this concern as the core responsible for playing the music is not simultaneously performing any other tasks.”

From the app you can select music starting by genre. “Works by the same composer are listed together,” Jeffrey tells us. “Likewise, multiple versions of each work are listed together. This hierarchical sorting makes it easy to survey the collection for the desired recording – possibly one that you forgot you had. Wax also provides incremental search if you already have a specific work in mind.”

Individual tracks or even the entire work can be added to the queue. You can also group tracks within a work – perhaps to represent the acts of an opera. “The other interesting feature is that the values in any column can alternatively be represented as a filter button,” Jeffrey continues. “[I can convert] the ‘subgenre’ field to a filter button by dragging the column header to the filter button area. Selecting a value with the filter button removes works from the list that do not match that value.”

Dive deeper

While the ‘gears and levers’ are usually hidden, you can enter a robust edit mode that lets you customise metadata, as well as creating new metadata for works. You can use the metadata downloaded from the online sources when creating and editing too.

Specific data is used to filter inside genres – the categories of data can be edited too. “WaxConfig is a separate program used for configuring Wax,” Jeffrey says. “Most importantly, this is where you specify genres, including their name and the primary and secondary keys. The Info page provides information about your collection, including the number of works in each genre.”

You can see an example of this in the image to the left. Jeffrey has put together a very in-depth guide on how to install and setup Wax, as well as going into more depth on how to use it. Performance on Raspberry Pi 4 is good too, especially on Jeffrey’s setup.

“I run Wax on a Raspberry Pi 4 with 4 GB of RAM,” Jeffrey tells us. “I use the NanoSound One DAC with the Argon One M.2 case. The NanoSound One DAC uses the TI PCM5122 DAC for high-quality audio output – 112 dB SNR. The Argon case makes it possible to integrate a 2TB SSD which I use for storing my sound archive.”

Even with the high-power audio hardware and no active cooling, the CPU temperature only reached 45C, with a CPU load of 2.4 (of a theoretical maximum of 4.0 due to the quad-core architecture). He even reckons a 2GB Raspberry Pi would do the job just fine.

“Wax makes it easy to find and appreciate the music I want to hear,” Jeffrey says. “Finding a recording of a specific work was often hard and always inconvenient when I had to sort through thousands of LPs and CDs. With Wax, I can make a selection from the comfort of my listening position. I sacrifice nothing for this convenience because Wax presents all the information I need to appreciate the recording — artist names, for example — and I am able to explore further, as I used to do by reading record jackets or CD liner notes, by accessing Wikipedia and liner notes in Wax from the comfort of my listening position. Instead of a wall full of recordings, my entire collection now fits in a tiny box powered by a Raspberry Pi.”

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“I love the idea of using bumper stickers as a form of self-expression, but I got to thinking about how ‘permanent’ they are, and how my own style, mood and taste tends to change relatively quickly,” he says. “I wanted to see how I could resolve those things – could I make a bumper sticker that was always up to date? Would it still be interesting if it wasn’t permanent?”

On track

Figuring a changeable bumper sticker would be both practical and fun, he initially decided to experiment by connecting a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W computer to a 5-volt HDMI display before working out a way to gather and share information about the song he was currently listening to in near real-time. He figured the best method would be to connect the Raspberry Pi device to the internet and make use of the online music service Last.fm. “It’s a ‘scrobbling’ tool that you can use to keep track of everything you listen to, regardless of where you’re listening from,” Guy explains.

By connecting Spotify to his Last.fm account, Guy had a way of grabbing details about his most recently played tune. Raspberry Pi could then pull that information and send it to the display for others to view. Since he wanted his project to look like a bumper sticker, this entailed creating an easily updated graphic – one with black text on a yellow background – that could be easily updated with new details – and Guy came up with the idea of using an image file that could be produced and rendered just before it was shown.

To enable this, Guy turned to a social website called Val Town which allows developers to code in the cloud. He wrote a small chunk of code – referred to as a val – that would access and fetch his Last.fm profile to gather details of the last song he was listening to. He then, with the assistance of Val Town’s AI, wrote another val to use a Javascript HTML5 canvas library to lay out the bumper sticker using the information gathered. This involved a lot of trial and error to make the text fit correctly, but he was able to successfully create, export and display a PNG image without any manual intervention.

Driving forward

With the nuts and bolts of the project in place, it was time to start refining. “I always start with components I already have or already know how to use,” Guy says. “I then quickly get as close as I can to a finished version, and then I see if there are any deal-breakers or cheap and obvious ways to improve the design. I find that momentum, as well as the ability to see and feel a project early on, really helps me stay on track, even if I know I’m going to have to revise things.

Given the idea was to create a device that looked as much like a real bumper sticker as possible, Dupont swapped out the display for an 11.3-inch strip LCD. “Size, shape, and readability came before anything else,” he explained. Figuring he’d be drawing power from a 12-volt car battery, he also grabbed a couple of breakout connectors and a buck converter to knock the power down to five volts.

Initial plans to connect the Raspberry Pi computer to the internet using a hotspot on his phone were revised as well. Dupont realised that he’d need to manually connect Raspberry Pi to the hotspot every time he got into his car and he knew, in his heart of hearts, that he would eventually tire of doing this, causing him to eventually consign the project to a drawer. To avoid this situation, he utilised a Particle Baron IoT development board which he also happened to have lying around.

“The main advantage of the board versus using the phone as a hotspot is that I never have to touch it or remember to turn it on,” he says. The board connects to Raspberry Pi and uses cellular data, the bonus being there are no monthly fees. The data is limited in quantity, but there’s more than enough for Guy’s intended use which makes for a perfect fit. With everything working, it was then a case of installing it, which required a spot of in-car wiring – and some dismantling of the vehicle’s interior panels.

The right path

The Raspberry Pi and other components were affixed to the back of the display panel which was also fitted with magnets to allow the device to be easily secured to the back of the car. For a neat finish, the device was placed in a heat-shrink sleeve that happened to be the perfect size. A bit of cutting was then required to allow the screen to show through, and Guy used some glue around the cuts for weatherproofing.

It works well. Powered by the car battery as soon as the vehicle is turned on, it immediately connects to the internet, grabs the required information and displays it. “Honestly, everything went pretty smoothly with this build,” Guy said. “It’s funny, but the thing that held me up the most was trying to figure out which HDMI settings would make this oddball display show what I wanted it to!”

Guy particularly likes the fact that it’s entirely automated so he always knows that it’ll be displaying his songs when he tootling down the road. “It lives with the car, which also means the sticker continues to work even if my wife is driving,” he laughs. “I’m afraid to ask whether she thinks that’s a bug or feature!”

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“Using a Raspberry Pi Pico, a light dependent resistor (LDR), a breadboard, some DuPont cables, and tape, I automated the famous Google T-Rex game,” Bas explains. “The LDR detects differences in analogue measurements whenever it senses cacti, which are always dark-coloured and appear on the same plane. The analogue-digital converter [ADC] port of the Pico measures each passing cactus ten times per second. After a 0.2-second delay, the Human Interface Device [HID] library simulates pressing the ‘up’ button on the keyboard, making the T-Rex jump at the right time.”

For Bas it was a fun way to show people he teaches and trains how the HID libraries work in code: “I’ve found that simulating single or multiple key presses with embedded processors stimulates the creativity and inventiveness of training participants,” he tells us.

See the light

Raspberry Pi Pico was the obvious choice for Bas. “[It’s] easy to obtain, very cost-effective, and supports MicroPython, CircuitPython, and Arduino C++,” Bas says. “It has a small form factor, can be easily soldered onto a prototyping board using castellated connections, or placed into a breadboard using headers. Personally, I like the Pimoroni Pico Explorer Base for prototyping, as it includes a breadboard, LCD screen, buttons, and breakout connectors. I especially appreciate the MicroPython and CircuitPython capabilities – they’re easy to explain to students, powerful, [and have a] wide range of libraries.”

The build itself is fairly simple – an LDR is placed in front of the screen, with tape acting as ‘blinders’ to stop other light interference. A pull-up resistor was used to stabilise the measurements too.

“The program displayed the measured [light] values in real time, making it easy to define and adjust the threshold values to trigger the T-Rex’s jump,” Bas further explains. “I stored the delay time for simulating the ‘up’ button press in a Python variable, allowing for easy adjustments through Thonny.”

Jumping ahead

What’s next for the T-Rex Jumper? “I have various future plans for these types of educational setups,” Bas says. “I’m always excited when participants in my trainings come up with creative ideas for using HID functions in combination with sensors and actuators, as it means I’ve succeeded in educating them about computer science and improving their digital literacy. Personally, I find it very rewarding to develop and create accessibility tools for people with disabilities, as they can greatly improve quality of life and make a meaningful difference.

Speaking of the creative ideas they came up, here’s just a few: automatic typing poem generators, pedal-based keyboards, automated testing tools for user interfaces, automatic swiping of dating apps… the list goes on.

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The Poly+ 5 is a Raspberry Pi 5 case in two flavours and colours. The case itself is moulded plastic with none of the aluminium work we’ve come to expect. The slightly transparent slidable top cover is available in red or black with a black base in both cases. The standard model comes with a 30mm PWM fan and an array of heatsinks. For a few more pounds you can opt for the mightier THRML-30 unit if you’re going to be running things hot. This is a similar unit to the official cooler with a fan and a large heatsink in one. If you forgo the fan you can fit a standard HAT in the case too (albeit one without any protrusions).

Assembling the case is straightforward. Attach the fan to the cover, pop on the heatsinks and clip everything together. It took no more than a few minutes. This is a clip-together screwless case (with the exception of the fan). The fan connects to the new fan header, so you get active, responsive cooling, just like the official equivalent.

In that case

In terms of usage: well, it’s a case and it does that job well. At no point did the Raspberry Pi leap out and do a runner, so we’ll call that a win. The fan was whisper-quiet throughout. There are no impediments to port access with the exception of the GPIO, which is fully covered. A thoughtful touch is the addition of a power button in a striking orange on the exterior, and next to that, unusually for a budget case, is a cover for the SD card (although this cannot be secured as with the NEO case). The base features ventilation slats to ensure good air movement from the fan. It stands on four rubber feet (also supplied).

Argon is trying to bring its design ethos to the budget market, and does it succeed? It’s certainly pleasing to look at, although lacking the sleek lines of the ONE or the elegant curvature of the official cases. What it does have in spades is value for money. At just £6 this is a great choice if you just need a protective, cooling.

Verdict

8/10

It’s a case. No fancy features, no extravagant design, no fancy lights. It is something that will protect and cool your Raspberry Pi well and at a fantastic price. If that’s what you need, look no further.

Specs

Form factor: Raspberry Pi 5 plus fan or HAT

Assembly: Snap-together

Material: ABS Plastic

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“I used Raspberry Pi because I was recently working with Raspberry Pi and cameras for another project, a digital sensor for a film camera,” says Michael. “Although there are definitely simpler solutions with cheaper microcontrollers, I find it valuable to start with techniques I know rather than going down rabbit holes of learning new tools. I used two separate boards because Raspberry Pi 5 is my home server and NAS, which I did not want to mount on the kitchen window.”

But there’s a catch: the food that Michael was leaving out for the cats was also attracting birds, for which cat food is potentially unhealthy, so he needed to find a way of identifying birds and scaring them away. He eventually settled on a minimal solution that just – only just – qualifies for the label of ‘robot’: an actuator (a Tower Pro micro servo) connected to a chopstick that taps on the window to scare the birds away. If Raspberry Pi 5 detects a bird, it sends a request to Raspberry Pi Zero to activate the servo.

“Defining ‘robot’ is hard to pin down and frequently leads to disagreement among roboticists,” says Michael. “I believe that a robot is any physical thing with sensors and actuators. While some definitions require autonomy, that excludes arguably robotic things like human-piloted mecha or heavy industrial equipment. Relaxing the requirement of autonomy frames robots as tools that complement rather than supplant our abilities, which I find valuable in the current hype wave of AI and ML.

“There are commercial products that do similar things, like the Bird Buddy or pet-oriented indoor security cameras. By the time that I could hack those to get the functionality I wanted, I might as well have started with open-source tools.”

“My favorite projects include Blossom, an open-source robot platform that I developed during my PhD, and the Leica MPi, a swappable digital sensor for a Leica film camera. I’m currently taking a sabbatical at the Recurse Center, a programming retreat in New York, where I am exploring alternative HCI hardware and brushing up on AIML for robotics.”

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Lucy Hattersley has all the AI kit and an urge to build something real

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The first thing to decide is which Raspberry Pi model to use before assembling the kit. PiDog will work with Raspberry Pi 4, 3B+, 3B, and Zero 2 W. Using a Raspberry Pi 5 is not recommended since its extra power requirements put too much of a strain on the battery power – PiDog uses a lot of current when standing or moving – so it’s likely to suffer from under-voltage. We opted for a Raspberry Pi 4, although even then we did have a few issues with crashes when the battery level was low.

Canine construction

With a kit comprising a huge array of parts, building a PiDog is no mean feat. We reckon it took us around five to six hours, although we were taking our time to get it right. The printed diagram-based instructions are easy to follow, however, and there are online videos if you get stuck. Apart from a few fiddly bits, including manipulating some tiny screws and nuts, it’s an enjoyable process. Helpfully, the fixtures and fittings – including numerous sizes of screws and plastic rivets – come in labelled bags. The kit includes a couple of screwdrivers too.

The main chassis is built from aluminium alloy panels, giving this dog a shiny and robust ‘coat’. There are also several acrylic pieces, including some to build a stand to place PiDog on when calibrating its leg servos. A nice touch.

Raspberry Pi sits on a sound direction sensor module and is then mounted with a Robot HAT which handles all the servos (via PWM pins), sensor inputs, and battery management. Portable power is supplied by a custom battery pack comprising two 18650 batteries with a capacity of 2000mAh, which takes a couple of hours to charge fully.

Doggy-do code

Once you’ve assembled the kit, it’s time to fine-tune the calibration of the servos with a script. You’ll have used a zeroing script during assembly to get the rough positions right, so will have already installed the PiDog libraries and software in Raspberry Pi OS.

Detailed online documentation guides you through everything, including running a script to enable I2S sound from the robot’s speaker. It also covers a good range of Python example programs that showcase what PiDog can do.

In patrol mode, for instance, PiDog walks forward and stops to bark when it detects something ahead. The react demo sees it rear up and bark when approached from the front, but roll its head and wag its tail when you pet the touch sensor on its neck. There’s also a balance demo to showcase its 6DOF IMU module that enables PiDog to self-balance when walking on a tilting tabletop.

There are a few examples using the camera module with OpenCV computer vision. A face-tracking demo generates a web server, enabling you to see the camera view on a web page. There’s also the option to control PiDog with an iOS or Android app, complete with live camera feed.

You can even communicate with your PiDog via GPT-4o AI, using text or spoken commands – with a USB mic (not supplied) equipped. It takes a bit of setting up, using an API key, but the online guide takes you through the process.

Verdict

9/10

Great fun to play with, this smart canine companion has an impressive feature set and lots of possibilities for further training.

Specs

Features: 12 × metal-gear servos, Robot HAT, camera module, RGB LED strip

Sensors: Sound direction, 6-DOF IMU, dual touch, ultrasonic distance

Works with: Raspberry Pi 4, 3B+, 3B, Zero 2 W

Power: USC-C, rechargeable 2×18650 battery pack

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Childhood wonder

Stefano’s first computer, a Commodore Vic20, was something he could program himself and opened up a world of possibilities. Most importantly, this first computer awakened Stefano to the idea of tinkering and eventually led to him pursuing a degree in electronic engineering. Over the past 20 years he has worked with many tech startups and software companies, often with Apache Frontier Foundation, where he became a fellow and met many passionate inventors. Fably, however, was very much inspired by Stefano’s own family, particularly his nine-year-old daughter who kept asking him to invent new stories.

Stefano had encountered LLMs (large language models) while working at Google Research and wondered whether he could use one to create a storytelling machine. Stefano found the command of language impressive but the LLM “felt like talking to a person that spoke like a college professor but had the understanding of the world of a five-year-old. It was a jarring experience especially when they confidently made stuff up.” The phenomenon is often referred to as ‘hallucination’ but Stefano says some colleagues at Google call it ‘fabulism’. He prefers this term and it is the origin of his Raspberry Pi project’s name. Importantly, ‘fably’ is also a word the text to speech synthesis API can pronounce.

As well as making more sense than an overconfident LLM, the smart storyteller needed to come up with compelling stories that engaged the listener and be sufficiently autonomous that it could be used without continuous adult supervision. Being an ambitious, entrepreneurial type, Stefano also wondered about the commercial possibilities and whether Fably could be made at a sufficiently low cost to build a community around it. He notes that children are demanding users being both “impatient and used to interactivity as a foundational aspect of learning”. It would be critical that the “time to first speech” (the time from the last word the child said and the first word coming out of the machine) could not be more than a few seconds.

Every cloud

Since LLMs are very resource-intensive (as he knew from working on machine learning at Google), Stefano chose a cloud API-based approach to address the need for speed, and Raspberry Pi to keep costs down so other technically minded makers could create their own. Raspberry Pi felt like the best choice because of its price, availability, fantastic and very active community, and because it runs Linux directly – a development environment Stefano felt right at home in. Additional hardware such as a microphone could also be added easily. Stefano praised Raspberry Pi’s “relatively stable” I/O pinout across versions in ensuring “a healthy and diverse ecosystem of extension boards”, which could prove important should Fably become a commercial product.

Fably makes full use of OpenAI cloud APIs, alongside a text-to-speech synthesiser with a warm and cosy voice. Stefano’s daughter enjoys the fact that she hears a slightly different story even if she makes the same request. Using a cloud setup means each story costs a few cents, but Fably can be set up to cache stories as well as to cap cloud costs.

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Gear Guide 2025!

Our Gear Guide 2025! has your back. Discover a treasure trove of Raspberry Pi devices and great accessories taking us into a glittering new year.

Gift a project

Sometimes the perfect gift is one you made yourself. Christmas Elf, Rob Zwetsloot has a fantastic feature for constructing your gifts using Raspberry Pi technology. On a budget? These projects break down the pricing so you can decide on what project to put together.

Bumpin Sticker

This issue is packed with amazing projects. Our favourite is this Bumpin Sticker that attaches an 11.3-inch LCD display to the bumper of a car and hooks up to the car radio. It displays the song and artist that you are listening to by scraping data from last.fm. It’s fun, but a serious demonstration of different technologies.

Bluetooth Bakelite phone headset

This Bluetooth headset is built into the body of a Dutch phone from 1950, simply called a ‘type 1950’. It’s powered by an ESP32 development board, and it works well enough that its creator, Jouke Waleson, can use it in a professional setting.

PiDog tested

Featuring 12 servos, PiDog is a metal marvel that can do (almost) anything a real dog can do. Walk, sit, lie down, doze, bark, howl, pant, scratch, shake a paw… Equipped with a bunch of sensors, it can self-balance, discern the direction of sounds, detect obstacles, and see where it’s going. You can even get a dog’s-eye view from its nose-mounted camera via a web page or companion app.

You’ll find all this and much more in the latest edition of The MagPi magazine. Pick up your copy today from our store, or subscribe to get every issue delivered to your door.

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A ton of supporting products launcged with Raspberry Pi Pico 2 and the RP2350, including a lot of items that were powered by RP2350. One of these included the excellent Thumby Color game system, and we finally have a few for a competition – enter below…

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It comes fully assembled, which is very nice as putting together the various motors and other components together correctly has been a pain with similar products in the past. All you need to do is turn it on and get it connected to your Wi-Fi network, either via a wireless access point the robot creates, or via a wired connection if you have a USB to Ethernet adapter handy.

The whole thing is powered by a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, so it has plenty of oomph – especially needed for the computer vision and voice recognition tasks.

I have control

The robot itself is made in Korea, and most of the surrounding documentation and such are in Korean as a result. However, the tools and IDE (integrated development environment) can be switched to English just fine, and we didn’t experience any language issues.

The tools allow you to play around with the various functions of the robot. Changing the colours of the eyes (independently if you wish), checking if the motion-sensing and touch inputs are working, recording sounds, playing sounds, moving the various motors – you can get a great feel for what the robot can do. With a solid grasp of this, you can then start programming the robot in the IDE.

There’s a couple of programming methods – one is a block-based flow a little like NODE-Red, which also helps you understand the coding logic and variables of Pibo, and then there’s the Python programming mode which allows for full control.

The functionality is huge, and we were really impressed by the object detection built into the camera. We also like making little messages and images on small LED screens, so having interactive elements that worked with the 128×64 display scratched a specific itch for us.

Learning for all ages

While the whole system may not be useful to teach people on their very first steps into coding, or even maybe robotics, it’s a great next step thanks to its intuitive design that lets you play with its features, and block based programming that can lead into Python. The price is a little hefty, and some English features are still incoming, but we had a great time using Pibo either way – one for the little desk display we think.

Specs

Dimensions: 250(w) × 395(h) × 125(d) mm, 2.2kg

Inputs: Touch sensor, MEMS microphone, PIR sensor, USB 2.0 port

Outputs: 2x speakers, 128×64 OLED display, USB 2.0 port

Verdict

9/10

A cute and very easy to use robot with a ton of functionality that will take some time to fully discover.

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AI Projects

Discover a range of practical AI Projects that put Raspberry Pi’s AI smarts to good use. We’ve got people detectors, ANPR trackers, pose detectors, text generators, music generators, and an intelligent pill dispenser.

Handheld gaming

Retro gaming on the move can be fun and
creative. PJ Evans grabs some spare batteries and builds a handheld gaming console.

DIY CNC Lathe

Being able to write G-codes enables all kind of custom machines. In this tutorial Jo Hinchcliffe looks at a simple small CNC lathe conversion.

Buttons and fastenings

Where would we be without buttons and fasteners. Nicola King takes a deep dive into the types of fastenings that you can use in your crafting projects.

DEC Flip-Chip tester

Rebuilding an old PDP-9 computer with a Raspberry Pi-based device that tests hundreds of components.

Pixie clock

This project recreates an old Nixie tube clock, only using ultra-modern (and vastly safer) LED lights.

You’ll find all this and much more in the latest edition of The MagPi magazine. Pick up your copy today from our store, or subscribe to get every issue delivered to your door.

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Friday kicked off with a talk on Dina St Johnston, founder of the UK’s first independent software company, which she started in 1959. After that came computing with human-worn sensors; mainframes; human creativity in the age of AI; and a look at Raftabar the robot, which uses facial recognition (and two Raspberry Pi boards) to attempt to engage humans in conversation. The day also featured an exploration of modular synthesis by musician Loula Yorke; how to poke holes in things with prototypes; and a look at the work being done by Open Innovations, an organisation that’s applying open data to policy recommendations in the north of England.

Saturday was the start of Open Source Hardware Camp, and featured a brilliant range of projects. Hackspace contributor Jo Hinchliffe gave a talk on open-source rocketry and the tools he uses to build flying machines, with particular reference to open source design software KiCAD. Omer Kilic and Stuart Childs taught us how to go from 10 units to 10,000 with their Adventures in Manufacturing talk. As DIY electronics enthusiasts we often wonder if we could invent the Next Big Thing, and this talk explored “the strange space between engineers, product owners and factories – setting up production lines and working with a variety of suppliers, from prototypes to mass production”.

There was plenty for fans of vintage computing: Tony Abbey is part of the team that rebuilt the EDSAC computer at the National Museum of Computing in Bletchley, and he was there to tell us all about that project. EDSAC was one of the first general-purpose computers, built in 1949, and even though the clunking electromechanical technology of those days has been far superseded by microcontrollers that you can buy for pennies, the lessons learned by rebuilding an early computer are well worth a look.

Andy Bennett shared his steampunk sunflower (left), which taught us that getting organic shapes to fit on PCBs isn’t quite as easy as it looks. He’s influenced by the work of Mohit Bhoite and Jiri Praus, both wonderful makers who have documented their build process to produce stunning open circuit sculptures. In the next talk, Roger Light explained how he built a digital camera sensor, spending £50,000 to make a device capable of capturing images at a resolution of 256×256 pixels.

Our favourite talk, and one which really encapsulates the brilliance of the one hardware movement, was by Spencer Owen. In 2013, Spencer built a clone of a Z80 computer on a breadboard, which went on to become the RC2014 kit computer. His talk this year was on dye sublimation printing onto PCBs. He’s worked out that with the same hardware you might use to print on to mugs and T-shirts, you can print on to the silkscreen layer of a PCB, opening up all sorts of colours and designs. Our favourite bit of Spencer’s talk is that he used the process to make a computer with rainbow PCBs, which he sold to raise money for LGBT charities; our second favourite bit of the talk is that, as JLCPCB now offers full-colour silkscreens, he wouldn’t have bothered with sublimation printing if he were starting today, but he did it anyway.

That’s something we love about open source hardware – very often, the point isn’t that you can do it better, or cheaper, but that you’ve done it for yourself. And we love it that events like this keep happening, where we share the knowledge and enthusiasm that keeps communities thriving.

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With a six-digit, seven-segment display such as the HDSP-2000 (itself an unusual choice – he hasn’t made this easy), Vitalii needed to find a way to multiplex the signals coming out of the chip, multiplying the I/O signals with transistors until he had enough to control each of the segments in the display. The result is this wonderful wristwatch, the custom PCB that enables the ATtiny85 to control the display, and a great deep dive into multiplexing written up on Hackaday.io.

We’re seriously impressed by this feat of electronic engineering. If you are too and you want to try it yourself, we’d suggest that you start with a single seven-segment display, a breadboard, and go from there – this tiny form factor presents loads of difficulties, all of which have been overcome here with aplomb.

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Alternatively, if you have access to a soldering iron and a drill, you can build your own home arcade setup. This build by SrGamer is based on a Raspberry Pi 5, and features two joysticks, loads of buttons and a gloriously chunky red power switch built into the case. The case was bought from Etsy rather than handmade, as the maker didn’t have much space to work, no woodworking experience and no access to workbenches, table saws, and other tools. We’re all standing on the shoulders of giants. All SrGamer had to do was see the potential, then bring it to life. We’re slightly worried by the choice of an MDF case, as it’s not the strongest material, and if you spill beer on it then it’ll swell up and deform, so if you use it in any of your project, be sure to finish with a coat of paint.

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If you’ve ever tried to specialise in any field of making, you’ll find that at some point you’ll have stopped – or at least delayed – creating things, in order to make things that help you make things. If you’re at the start of your journey into woodworking, for example, you’ll very sensibly want to start with a bench hook, to hold workpieces steady while you’re sawing them. Then, of course, you’ll need a bench, otherwise the bench hook is useless. A few weeks pass, and at every turn, you’re spending more time making jigs than you are making the thing you wanted to make – what even was that again?

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How did you join Raspberry Pi?

I was working part time alongside job hunting after uni, and came across the application for a graphic design role at Raspberry Pi. I then got invited for an interview where I got to meet my lovely team, and speak through a few of my projects. After a couple of weeks I received an email saying I didn’t get the graphic design position advertised…however I was offered an internship for six months as a graphic designer! After two months of my internship I was offered a full time position.

What did you know about Raspberry Pi before joining?

I’ve known about Raspberry Pi for many years through my dad. On one of his birthdays we got him a Raspberry Pi 4B from the store in Cambridge!

What Raspberry Pi design stuff have you worked on?

I have worked on a variety of projects ranging from packaging to web assets to magazines to events. My first packaging project was reskinning the PoE HAT.

I also designed the tote bags you may have seen at any of the pop-up stores we’ve had, as well as on past magazines, like a feature page I had the pleasure of working on in Wireframe.

Have you made anything with a Raspberry Pi, or have any plans to?

I currently have a Raspberry Pi 5 at home that is in desperate need of a project for it! My dad and I are constantly looking for inspiration, so plans are pending…

What other hobbies do you have?

Over lockdown I taught myself to crochet: cardigans, plushies etc. I even made some cutesy leaf coasters for some of my colleagues. I have also completed two half marathons so far. Unfortunately – or thankfully – I didn’t get a ballot place in the London marathon next year.