Schlagwort: tech articles

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It uses a mixture of Arduino code and Pico hardware, with processing done entirely on Pico itself. It makes use of a silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) and scintillator crystal which interact with the detector board to manage this, whereas other solutions need USB sound cards and up to a kilovolt of power. This only needs 30 V.

Microcontroller for the job

“I tried many different microcontrollers before the Pico was released, but availability and cost were always a concern for me,” Matthias says, as he explains to us why he chose Pico. “That’s because a standard Arduino Uno isn’t nearly fast enough for the job and most of the other SAMD microcontrollers, for example, mostly lack excellent software support for the Arduino IDE. When Pico came out, I was amazed by the low cost and, at the same time, great performance and modifiability. You can do so many things with it, and the software support is great thanks to the Pico SDK and the awesome Arduino-Pico library. And last, but not least, you can get it almost everywhere [cheaply], even in the current state of the industry!”

With a microcontroller selected, Matthias started creating separate modules for his device and assembled them on a breadboard before designing PCBs for the final product.

“Loads of different PCBs actually,” Matthias mentions. “There have been so many revisions, I lost count of them. I still have a good amount of them here (the ones that worked). The last few board revisions, finally, were more like fine-tuning and creating a more user-friendly PCB so that everything’s in one piece and easier to build (this includes the Pico being SMD-mounted for example).”

Practical sensitivity

For the detection part, Matthias told us that, technically, Geiger counters can do a similar job, and are also pretty cheap.

“What’s really the one single benefit of having a gamma spectrometer is the energy spectrum with which you can guess what exact radioactive materials are in your sample,” Matthias explains. “Got radioactive ceramics? You can easily tell if it’s from after WW2, pre-WW2, and even from the beginning of industrial pottery in the 1800s, just looking at the spectrum. Ionization smoke detector? You can tell exactly what’s in there ionizing the air. You can identify natural occurring isotopes in rocks, measure the potassium content in food, check your soil or rainwater for contaminants, and so much more.”

Check out magpi.cc/opengamma for information on how you can make your own.

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The version we received was pre-assembled; however, the assembly instructions are simple and very well illustrated on the website – all you need to do is attach everything to the case and PCB and you’re just about ready to go. You may notice that the website uses a lot of large UI elements; the website itself is based on the same interface as the POP CAMERA, and is optimised for ease of use on any system, including VR. For construction and initial setup you may prefer to use a desktop, or even a smartphone browser.

We asked the creator whether or not a more desktop optimised version would be made but, for now, they’re trying to keep it simple. However, we actually found that it helped us get our head around the UI for POP CAMERA before we started to use it properly.

We are VR

It is perfectly usable from a desktop browser, though, which is how we mostly tested it out. Initial setup is fairly simple – you just need to log onto POP CAMERA via a hotspot access point and then input your Wi-Fi details. With any luck, you’ll be able to connect via your browser by pointing at popcamera.local, but in the worst case you can just press the button that resets the Wi-Fi details to the hotspot.

From here, you can record, get a live preview, view your files, and download the video directly. You can also set up an account that allows you to upload files and even stream live. The live preview was fun to see when connected via a VR headset (we used the aforementioned Meta Quest 2), and recorded video downloaded to the device was easy to watch in 3D.

Reality barrier

While the hardware and UI is great, the quality of video leaves something to be desired. Audio is not binaural, which makes sense as there is only one mic, and the resolution and video is noticeably not as good as professionally made stuff. It’s still very good, however, and it’s understandable that the quality would be lower than others as it’s using Raspberry Pi camera modules.

It is good enough, though, and the constant updates make it better all the time. We were surprised at the quality of objects placed up very close to the lens, and there is some auto-stabilisation and levelling that meant we didn’t get a little disorientated either.

We’re looking forward to putting it through its paces for some fun 360 videos in the future.

Verdict

8/10

Easy to use, but the videos produced aren’t the best quality. It’s still probably the best entry camera for VR360 videos that we’ve seen, though.

Price
£260/$300 (TBC)

Specs
Dimensions: 70 mm × 57 mm × 36 mm
Cameras: 2 × 8MP sensors with 200-degree angle lenses
Computer: Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 with 2GB RAM and 16GB storage
Video output: 360-degree stereoscopic fish-eye

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In a further twist, Ed has recently handed over the tree surgery business to his brother and is currently training as a primary school teacher. He has taken one of his ForestryPi monitoring kits with him and will use it to inspire pupils as citizen scientists, reporting on the trees at school over the seasons and successive years.

International inspiration

Ed returned to university to study aquaculture and fisheries, where he was struck by the number of examples of academic papers detailing “really cheap bits of computer equipment to monitor XYZ” in poor parts of the world. “I was always really interested in those papers, and how little, cheap computers really can democratise science and give everyone the chance to do fairly complicated stuff that would have, a few years ago, required thousands of pounds worth of kit.” Having read a paper last year about monitoring a forest canopy, Ed decided he could do something similar, despite being “no expert coder.” A Raspberry Pi Zero, Witty Pi 3 real-time clock, fish-eye lens, 20,000 mAh battery pack, and a 32GB SD card, plus a plastic casing, formed the basis of the ForestryPi setup.

Ed details how he set up ForestryPi on the Green Lane Forestry website, largely using software such as Microsoft RStudio he had used while studying, along with ImageJ to process the photos the time-lapse camera produced. The camera itself is mounted on the trunk of a tree in a weatherproof box. Keeping the rain out was a big challenge for Ed, who came up with the parts list and built the complete ForestryPi monitoring system himself. A local land agent expressed an interest in the project and they settled on a suitable stand of trees, planning to “generate some data to see the gradual growth and decline of the tree canopy over the course of the growing season and into winter.” A computer scientist friend was “just disgusted” at the code Ed produced, but his approach of working backwards to get something serviceable nonetheless bore fruit.

Rewarding results

ForestryPi is set to take photographs at regular intervals, but the changeable weather conditions in West Sussex, where Ed is based, mean some photos are far more useful than others. Ed says there were “all sorts of problems of light and shadow. I thought it would work fine regardless but, actually, when you come to analyse the image you realise, ‘Nope, that’s too early in the day’.” He also found issues with “weird artifacting” and a lot of scattering of data, along with some interesting results. In fact, Ed sees lots of potential for the setup, especially if a camera can be set up to record the life of a tree or stand of trees over multiple years.

“For the best results, you really do need a woodland where you’ve got cover on all sides,” says Ed. Few people have ready access to a stand of trees whose canopy you can monitor, but lots of people have trees in their gardens. Ed adds that “anyone with an interest in Raspberry Pi is capable of giving this a go and monitoring the growth of their own trees. It’s a fun project, and it provides a good introduction to using Raspberry Pi in a remote setting.”

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However, as I write this, the future of a certain bird-themed social media service seems a little uneasy. While many refer to it as ‘The Hellsite’ (for very valid reasons) in my personal life, and professional life, I’ve had a lot of fun with it and made many great connections. I love starting Monday (or Tuesday, if there is a bank holiday) asking what you’re making and seeing all the cool stuff fill up The MagPi’s mentions. It’s hard to dislike Mondays like that.

It’s everywhere

That place is not the only one that’s full of Raspberry Pi or maker folks. The forums at Raspberry Pi are full of great people working out some of the cooler intricacies of Raspberry Pi, Pico, or even Raspberry Pi OS. Many a search to fix a project has landed me on the forum, with a solution right there, or a fantastic hint that gets me to one.

While unofficial, the subreddit for Raspberry Pi is always cool to look over. I’ve had many ideas for projects from there, and even got several people in the mag because they’ve posted to the subreddit. It’s always fun to notice trends in projects as well, and of course see someone else making yet another interesting handheld retro gaming console in a new way I’d never considered.

Ashley, from the social team at Raspberry Pi, also tells me that LinkedIn is great, however I try to avoid it for a very personal reason: I hate it. If you don’t hate it though, go give Raspberry Pi a follow there, and also on Facebook. We’re also on Facebook too!

Where next?

Hopefully by the time you read this, the fears over the bird app will have all (thankfully) come to nothing and service will resume as normal. In case it doesn’t though, Raspberry Pi has launched its own Mastodon server at raspberrypi.social, and we at The MagPi will likely follow suit. Otherwise, Raspberry Pi is also exploring braver, younger frontiers with videos on TikTok.

Of course, the magazine will still be published, and I’m sure we’ll find you all again, wherever we end up.

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Raspberry Pi Buyers Guide 2023

Treat yourself this holiday season with our guide to sourcing the latest Raspberry Pi hardware, official accessories and third-party kits and projects. We’ve got gifts for every budget, so whether you’re just looking to get started or dreaming of a big build for the new year; we’ve got you covered.

Creating a maker room

Turn a spare room in your home into a personal maker space. A personal den of making can be a wonderful place to bring your creations into existence. Discover a wealth of information about electronic tools, workstations, 3D printers, and essential accessories.

Hack a retro CRT + VCR Triniton with Raspberry Pi 

We love a classic hack in The MagPi and this CRT + VCR ticks all our nostalgic boxes. It takes a classic television and video combo box and uses Raspberry Pi to give it super smarts. Now it’s capable of playing classic TV shows, old movies and retro games.

The Lost Sounds Project

Identifying creatures on their appearance is hard enough, but this project takes things one step further and identifies critters based on their sounds. Based in Morcombe Bay this project helps school children explore their local environment by recording and playing back bird songs.

Build an Iron Man Arc Reactor

Iron Man’s beating electromagnetic heart makes a great build project. Fans of Iron Man [aren’t we all – Ed] will love this prop from the movies, made by Raspberry Pi’s in-house maker, Toby Roberts. It is built using Raspberry Pi Pico, LED lights and mirrors to produce an infinity effect.

HandPi

Raspberry Pi handheld projects are mainly retro gaming-inspired, or clamshell-style laptops. That’s why we love this HandPi handheld desktop computer with a touchscreen display and tiny keyboard. It’s small enough to fit in the palm of your hand but powerful enough to be used in hacking and coding projects.

10 Amazing holiday projects

The festive and holiday season is just around the corner now, and what way to better celebrate than with an electronic project! From Santa detectors to a virtual fireplace, there’s something seasonal for everybody.

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The MicroPi is a little computer that is build from a Raspberry Pi 3A+, using a compact HAT to add a load of functions out of the box. This new Starter Kit takes it a step further by introducing a lot of projects for beginners to try out. We quite like it, and we have one to give away…

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Prior to his adventures in Raspberry Pi Pico programming, Tod’s company, ThingM, had launched a “simple but popular” USB LED notification light known as blink(1). This provides a visual indication that you’ve received a message, email, retweet, and so on. The idea behind the PicoStepSeq is also visual: using GPIO pins, Tod planned to program Pico to light a series of LEDs at varying intensities when each note played. “The Pico and the RP2040 are wonderful parts. So much possibility in such a small, inexpensive package!”

Musical muse

Tod found easily available ‘step switches’ – lever switches with LEDs – as an inspiration. “I wanted to make a MIDI step sequencer, looking like the 1980s synths and drum machines that had these switches,” he says. “Their integral LED makes it really clear of the state of the parameter that the switch is controlling, and they take up only a bit more space than a regular tactile switch. And their clicky-clicky sound is ‘chef’s-kiss’.”

Tod was also keen to make a Raspberry Pi version of a four-button step switch project he’d read about on the Adafruit website. “MIDI is a very forgiving protocol and much easier than trying to make an actual synthesizer”, says Tod. He thinks step sequencers are “a good way to think about music creation, because it limits you to only eight notes and a small amount of time.”

Simple steps

Tod was keen to use both USB MIDI and serial MIDI, which meant he’d need some sort of display or user interface. Given the number of GPIOs he was going to need, the GPIO-laden Pico was an obvious choice and made project design a breeze. Every part – button, LED, display, encoder, and MIDI – is wired directly to the Pico without the need for GPIO expanders, key matrix, or ‘charlieplexing’, says Tod. (Assigning multiple functions to a button by giving them different responses if they are enabled, disabled, or partially enabled.)

Since Pico has PWM (pulse-width modulation) and movable UARTs, Tod could simply assign a command to any pin, as well as use variable brightness LEDs. Getting the timings right for the I2C displays was trickier: their 35 ms refresh rate is relatively sluggish compared to the rate of incoming MIDI messages.

Tod turned to CircuitPython for its displayio library, which sends only necessary messages over I2C. With this, “most display updates take 5-10 milliseconds, which means I can still send notes with relatively good timing,” Tod explains. The code is on GitHub.

Tod is already thinking of how to refine the StepSeq with “a MIDI arpeggiator that has a little bit of music theory built into it, so it always stays in the right musical key.” The exact hardware can become a nifty tiny synthesizer too, he adds. “Perhaps the improved audio circuitry will be in PicoStepSeq Mk II.”

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“The great thing about design is that it’s a framework that can be applied to any kind of making,” Sophy explains. “So, being interested in lots of different mediums and techniques, I took as many art electives as I could squeeze into my schedule. I took printmaking, ceramics, photography, drawing, sculpture, video media. After graduating and becoming a professional graphic designer, I continued to dabble with sewing and fashion design, and eventually started my own small business designing and making clothing. From there, I moved on to costuming, working at Seattle Opera in the costume department. Along the way, I discovered DIY electronics and wearable technology projects, and I began combining all my interests together to design and build costumes and fashion projects that use technology like LEDs in artistic and expressive ways.”

What was your first Raspberry Pi project?

The first Raspberry Pi project I worked on was the SelfieBot, which was a collaboration with my husband Kim Pimmel, who is also a maker and designer. We wanted to build something special for our local Seattle Mini Maker Faire, and we thought it would be fun to create our take on a selfie booth. So we used a Raspberry Pi with a camera and thermal printer for the selfies, and added a screen with custom animations for facial expressions. We recorded my voice for giggles and cute robot sounds, and timed them with the animated face graphics to give SelfieBot a personality. The result is a little character that makes taking a selfie at an event into a fun, interactive experience.

What inspires you?

Inspiration is something that I actively search for and catalogue, so I always have ideas for things I want to make. I get inspiration from movies, books, music, art museums, or even just products on display in a store. I’m very drawn to science-fiction and fantasy, because I love thinking about the future and imagining things that don’t exist yet. I don’t like to sit around and wait for inspiration to find me, I like to hunt for it myself!

What are your favourite projects you’ve made?

Lately, I have been really enjoying working with 3D printing on fabric, and creating full garments and accessories with the technique. It’s a bit experimental and I love designing for such a new medium. I’m also a huge fan of spacesuits, real and imaginary, and making my own spacesuit was a long-time dream of mine. My custom-designed fantasy spacesuit is definitely one of my favourite projects. I’m currently working on a new spacesuit to be used in a short film, and I’m super-excited to finish it and see it used to tell a cool sci-fi story!

Any dream projects you’d like to make?

I’d love to continue making costumes and fashion pieces to be used in films and music videos, as I’ve had the opportunity to design and build costumes for two music videos and it’s just amazing to be able to tell stories through my work. One day, I’d love to make a full ensemble for someone to wear to the Met Gala.

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Brighter, later

Kevin McAleer’s work may be familiar: he hosts a popular Sunday YouTube robot design channel. Among other intriguing makes, we’ve recently featured both Kevin’s Billy Bass remotely flappable fish and his PIKON DIY camera. While both those projects upcycle existing hardware, the idea behind the delightful doggie Day-Glo jacket was “to create something fun from some foot-long LED NeoPixel strips.” Kevin realised that he could control these from a couple of feet away using a Pimoroni Plasma 2040 microcontroller.

The Plasma 2040 also has a very important current-limiting function that ensures Archie doesn’t end up toasted, should the lights short out and draw a lot of current very quickly. However, the Plasma lacks both Bluetooth and wireless connectivity. This is where Raspberry Pi Pico W comes in. With the low cost of Pico Ws, Kevin thought, “well, why not just add one to the project and have it act as a bridge and front-end to the project? It can handle all the wireless stuff, whereas the Plasma 2040 can do what it’s best at – making LEDs light up.”

Kevin also had a cunning plan for powering everything: he’d run it all off a tiny LiPo battery, secreted in a self-contained harness that can comfortably sit on Archie’s back. Fingers crossed, the battery would last long enough for a stroll along Blackpool promenade, the home of illuminations and the perfect place to show off such a marvellously attired pup.

Style and practicality

Designing the 3D-printed saddle was probably the biggest challenge, since it had to comfortably fit Archie while also holding all the electronics. “Will it fit right? Can it safely hold all the components? Will it be light enough?” were Kevin’s chief concerns here. He also worried whether the attention-grabbing effect would last long enough for a reasonable length stroll, and didn’t want Archie to have to style out a wardrobe malfunction. Adding a pocket to the saddle design to allow for speedy battery changes helped allay this fear, while applying lashings of superglue helped adhere the rainbow LED strips to the plastic dog coat.

Given his choice of microcontrollers, this is a MicroPython-based project, which suited Kevin very well. “I love MicroPython,” he declares. “All the code [for the project] is written in this for simplicity and speed of creation. It’s as close to English as any language I’m aware of; good code reads like regular sentences.”

Kevin credits the “amazing” Phew! code from Pimoroni for the easy setup of wireless access point and web interface. Phew! (Pico HTTP Endpoint Wrangler) “does a couple of cool things,” Kevin explains. “It can make the Pico W into an access point for a device, meaning it will appear on your phone as a wireless hotspot.”

Another handy feature meant Kevin was able to add scrolling text as a final flourish to his already impressive illuminated Cyberdog Smart Saddle. Since Phew! can divert traffic to a specific web page, he was able to use it to change the LED patterns or scroll text he entered, and have it appear on the Cyberdog Smart Saddle. Cheeky!

“I’m not aware of any project that has influenced this,” says Kevin. “It’s just a crazy idea I saw through to completion!” We think it’s doggone good!

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While we haven’t run an event calendar in The MagPi for a while now, this, and other recent tech events and online interactions, have reminded me just how much Raspberry Pi tech is used around the world, and how differently it can be used as well.

Cultural differences

As you may know, American English and British English have some differences. Not only in terms of just outright different words, but also in how they’re used – Matt Richardson, Community Engagement Manager at Raspberry Pi, informs us that, for robots that are remote-controlled and not autonomous, it’s much more proper to call them rovers in the US. Which makes sense!

While visiting Maker Faire Tokyo a few years back, the style of projects on display was very different than those in the UK or US. Here, folks’ creativity was on show, with weird and wonderful robots and contraptions that wouldn’t look out of place in a Rube Goldberg machine. In comparison, Westerners seemed to be making stuff with practicality and usefulness in mind.

Neither way is better, however it would be cool to see people here experiment with more artistic projects just for the fun of it.

Global community

Through the (questionable) magic of social media, we’ve managed to stay connected to international makers over the last few years, hearing about robot competitions in Puerto Rico, coding classrooms, seeing mini laptops from Hong Kong, and Astro Pi entries from all over the world.

We love to showcase projects from readers and the wider community here in The MagPi, so never feel like you can’t send something our way! Even if English isn’t your first language, we can make something look (and read) great if you’ve got a cool build to show off.

Hopefully, as we get to more events throughout the world, and more events run in general, we’ll be able to meet more of you and get your excellent projects in the magazine – wherever you are.

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“I found an affordable Amstrad NC100 and I thought this was the form factor I wanted at an affordable price,” he says. “It also looked similar to the cyberdeck I imagined when reading William Gibson’s Neuromancer novel. It didn’t take long to find a purpose.”

Sugar coating

The Amstrad NC100 was an A4 slimline notepad 8-bit computer which used the Z80 processor and came with a built-in LCD screen that displayed 80 characters columns across eight rows. It had 64kB or RAM, 256kB of ROM, and a full keyboard with a handful of coloured keys. The Protext word processor was built-in alongside other ‘office’ apps. But Philipp wasn’t impressed.

“I removed all the parts,” he says. “For me, the NC100’s processor power, ROM, and RAM are insufficient for today’s use and the monochrome display is small. I also found the keyboard was pretty awful if you’re used to mechanical keyboards.” Yet he liked the overall design: “It looks cool. I thought I’d give it a new, modern life.”

Retaining only the case, he based his project around a Raspberry Pi computer. He decided he’d replace the screen with an 8.8-inch 1920×980 widescreen LCD, and use a CRKBD driven by an Arduino Pro Micro board.

“A friend, Alejandro, sent me some CRKBD PCBs and I was blown away,” Philipp says. “It’s a small, split keyboard with three rows of six keys per side. When I tested the two halves, they fit almost perfectly, especially given that the height of the CRKBD is quite low. That said, I still had to move the keyboard microcontroller away from the PCB and pack it under the display.”

You can find out more about the CRKBD (aka Corne Keyboard) here.

A fitting end

Space was a major issue. “There’s only about 9 ×29 ×2 cm available to put Raspberry Pi, the cables, and display including the control board inside,” Philipp explains. He decided to put the display on top of the case rather than recess it, saving 4 mm. He also removed the Amstrad’s battery compartment and sanded away all elevations. Once done, it was a matter of connecting everything up and using the operating system NixOS.

“NixOS is different from other Linux distros,” he notes. “It’s declarative and very easy to produce with the entire OS configurable in a single config file. You can also generate your own development environment in NixOS, including the dependencies for each project. I can briefly test tools without installing them too.”

The result of all of this hard work is a cyberdeck that works as a Linux terminal, allowing Philipp to run a Mastodon social networking service, use the text editor Vim, blog, and enjoy RSS among lots of other things. “Using the NB100 means I don’t have to sit down at my laptop or computer,” he says. “And I’m still able to use this beautiful piece of Amstrad hardware.

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Build a Smart Home

There’s been a boom smart home projects that feature Pico W at the heart. Use the new Wi-Fi connectivity found in the new Pico W microcontroller board to wirelessly control devices around the home. This month, PJ takes a look at the best home automation kit, projects and walk-through setting up smart lighting with Pico W.

Pico-powered Christmas Lights

Get ready for the Holiday season with our guide to using Pico to control Christmas lights. This tutorial will walk you through decorating your tree, controlling lights with code and adjust the RGB colour values to create your own patterns.

PoleFX

The networking power of Raspberry Pi is used to create light-illuminated poles for acrobatic dancing. With OpenCV image tracking and thousands of LEDs this unique project is incredibly detailed.

CyberDog Smart Saddle

If lighting up poles in a dance studio isn’t enough. How about lighting up your dog and taking it for a walk? We chat with the maker of this Smart Saddle that uses hundreds of LEDs to create a rainbow saddle for when a loveable hound goes for a walk!

Arribada Penguin Monitoring

How work at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) led to a project designing digital ‘traps’ to photograph animals. This then led to a project designing a camera setup that could with standard an Antarctic winter and snap photographs of penguins every hour.

BMOctoprint

BMO is a character from the animated fantasy Adventure Time [according to Rob at least – Ed] and BMOctoprint combines this cute retro-inspired character with a powerful OctoPrint server for controlling 3D printers.

Build a weather dashboard

Anvil’s dashboard enables you to quickly build a web dashboard and connect it to Raspberry Pi Pico. Phil’s tutorial will show you how to set up Pico W as an internet connected temperature and environment sensor and use it with Anvil to remotely monitor weather settings.

Petoi Robot Dog Bittle review

We love robots here at The MagPi and have tested a wide range of wheeled, walking and clasping buddies.  This month we were particularly taken with Bittle, a new robot dog that takes inspiration from the larger dogs being developed by industry. It’s not the easiest build, but it’s great to take for a walk.

Sophy Wong interview

We catch up with a multidisciplinary designer who crafts wearable tech into incredible projects. Sophy’s projects have adorned The MagPi and our sister magazine, HackSpace and this month we find out what drives her passion.

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Electronic badges are gaining popularity thanks to new technology, such as RP2040! Tufty 2040 is an RP2040 powered, full colour LCD screen that you can use to display your own custom badge design. Great for makerspaces, cons, and more!

Check below to enter our competition to win one…

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Although enterprise-level facial recognition security systems can connect to automatic sliding doors, they are very expensive, so Dillon and Erin looked to create a go-between. “We wanted something to theoretically cost the same as current consumer facial recognition door locking devices,” Dillon says. “It would be connected to your home’s power and contain a motorised deadbolt, allowing the system to be powered 24/7 and completely hands-free.” This, however, was not without its challenges.

Slide away

As well as needing to constantly search for a known face, the hardware module had to be mounted within the frame of the door. The deadbolt needed to be motorised so it could retract into the frame to unlock, and there needed to be a way of quickly and easily exiting a home without electronics getting in the way.

“I implemented a simple sliding mechanism to replace the knob on a standard door – it was able to remove the deadbolt with a single motion,” Dillon says. “Other hardware features included the ability to unlock the door with facial recognition and an LED indicator on the exterior of the home to receive feedback. But other features, regarding usability and convenience, were primarily achieved in the Android mobile app.”

These included remote unlock and the ability to add recognised faces. “We felt these two features would give the user a true smart home feel,” Erin explains. “People would be allowed to enter the home even if the owner wasn’t there, and adding faces gives the user the ability to adapt the door as needed. Yet, having never built an app before, the whole plan was a little intimidating.”

Professional feel

The pair also faced problems when implementing OpenCV to recognise faces. “The library is vast and difficult to install easily,” Dillon says. “Once OpenCV was installed, I realised it was not designed to accept new face encodings dynamically – all registered images were generally hard-coded on bootup.”

To overcome this, Dillon implemented a dynamically updating dictionary, and he refreshed the OpenCV code to reflect the changes. The pair also used a Google Firebase database that allowed for communication between Raspberry Pi and the Android app. “Having to communicate with other devices through Firebase added a level of difficulty that wasn’t anticipated at first,” Erin says.

This was achieved by updating and reading database variables – they’d be updated when a new user unlocked the door, for example, and the mobile app would notice the change and show an image of the user who had activated the lock. “By implementing this method, we were able to transfer both variable values and images from Raspberry Pi to the mobile app and back again through Firebase,” Dillon explains.

With Erin’s custom GUI containing an array of buttons and functions, AuraLock certainly ended up looking and feeling professional. “We feel that all features included in the app are key to a positive user experience,” she says. And it definitely put a smile on our faces.

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At the bottom of the board, three relays (all with the option of a normally closed or open connection) can output up to 40 V at 1 A, or 24 V at 2 A. Next to them are three (switchable) sourcing outputs that can provide up to 4 A at up to 40 V for things like larger motors, solenoids, and pumps.

Along the top are three 12-bit analogue inputs and four buffered digital inputs, all tolerant up to 40 V. There’s also a pair of 5 V outputs for lower-voltage components. Finally, there’s a couple of Qwiic/STEMMA QT ports for breakout sensors, and an unpopulated header for a few of Pico W’s pins.

Let there be light

One really nice touch is the inclusion of a status LED (wired directly) for every input and output, so you can see when it’s active – ideal for debugging programs (in MicroPython or C/C++), even when external hardware isn’t yet connected. We also like the two programmable push-buttons with white space next to them to write labels.

Best of all is Pico W’s own wireless connectivity, which means that you can easily set up a web interface (an example is included in Pimoroni’s Getting Started Guide to control and monitor your devices.

Verdict

8/10

A little expensive, but then it is a standalone device and will work with almost all home automation systems.

Specs

Power: From 6 V to 40 V via screw terminals

Inputs/Outputs: 4 × digital inputs, 3 × 12‑bit analogue inputs, 3 × sourcing outputs, 3 × relays

Features: 2 × user buttons, reset button, status LEDs, 2 × Qwiic/STEMMA QT ports, unpopulated header

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Kosmas is a fan of low-level programming and, when asked to write a paper on how computer programming has evolved over the decades, he decided to dig deep and go the extra mile.

“As I was researching about the beginnings of personal computers, I came across the Kenbak-1, and apparently this was a quite well-documented system, with the original creator having a website that explained how it was made and how it worked,” Kosmas explains. “When I saw that, I immediately realised it would be really cool for my presentation. However, it is not easy to get one of these, and the recreation kits were not really viable for me either, so I decided to build my own.”

More Pico

At the time of creation, Kosmas was interested in using Pico due to the low price, and because he wanted to see more cool Pico projects in the world.

“Actually building the project was more difficult than I expected,” he says. “The case is basically a big metal box that I drilled some holes through and painted blue and was easy enough to create, but setting up the actual wiring was not easy. This project uses 15 push-buttons and 13 LEDs (one power LED connected to the power supply as an on/off indicator, and eight I/O and four function LEDs connected to the Pico), which all had to be confined to the small space of the case.

“Everything was also hand-soldered, so there were some issues with soldering something at this scale for someone as new to soldering as me… this gets me to how the project actually works. The Kenbak-1 (and, by extent, PicoKenbak) had twelve LEDs. Eight of the them were used for data I/O, and four of them were used for indicating that various functions were done, like clearing input, showing the current memory address, reading from memory, and stopping program execution.

“Additionally, I had to use optocouplers to power the LEDs, to ease up power requirements on the Pico. There are also 15 push-buttons. Eight of those are used for inputting data to store into memory, and the other seven are used for functions. Clearing input (which I have wired to the Pico’s RUN pin), set/show memory address, read/store with memory, and start/stop program execution. This was actually a close one because, by the time I was done, I had used up every pin on the Pico.”

Emulation and more

Kosmas wrote an emulator in C, which handles all the original functions of the Kenbak-1.

“Programming is done the same way that it was done with the original Kenbak-1,” he explains. “The programmer uses the push-buttons to type an instruction byte in binary, and then stores the byte into memory. Program space can start at address 4 and end at address 127. By default, execution starts from address 4.”

In the future, Kosmas plans to update it with a Pico W and add some wireless functionality, such as executing code over a network. If you want to check out the emulator, the code is available online.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

SmartiPi Touch Pro

Case and stand

This enclosure allows you to create an entire Raspberry Pi system and put it anywhere around your house. magpi.cc/smartipi  |  £30 / $25

Official Raspberry Pi 4 Case

Simple and clean

This sleek and simple case is the official case for Raspberry Pi, acting as a perfect enclosure at a low price. magpi.cc/pi4case  |  £5 / $5

Gameboy NANO

Adorably tiny

One of the smallest cases we’ve seen for Raspberry Pi Zero, it also turns it into a handheld console. Great for small fingers. magpi.cc/gameboynano   |  Free

Zebra Pico Case

Layered protection

Zebra makes lovely cases for microcomputers and dice, and this layered case for Pico offers great protection with full coverage for all the delicate parts, along with full access to GPIO and power. magpi.cc/zebrapico   |  £8 / $9

Raspberry Pi Pico Case

Officially inspired

While not an official case, this 3D-printed case is created in a similar style to the official ones, with a base and a lid. magpi.cc/3dpicocase   |  Free

Official Raspberry Pi Zero Case

Simple and tiny

A companion case to the official case, this time shrunk down to fit all types of Raspberry Pi Zero. magpi.cc/pizerocase  |  £5 / $5

Acrylic case for Raspberry Pi Pico

Two acrylic slabs

A very simple case made of two acrylic pieces that you join together through Pico’s mount holes. magpi.cc/acrylic  |  £8 / $10

FLIRC Raspberry Pi Case

For media PCs

This beautiful-looking case is made with aluminium, and acts as a heatsink. The design lets it sit neatly under a TV to power your media centre desires. There’s also a Zero variant. magpi.cc/flirc   |  £14 / $16

NESPi 4 Case

Retro console camo

This great classic console replica also allows you to use the front ports as you normally would, and add fake cartridges.

magpi.cc/nespi4  |  £28 / $27

Pico USB Rubber Ducky Case

Converting enclosure

This 3D-printable case includes a nice little groove to put in a specific micro-USB to USB-A adapter, allowing you to easily plug a Pico into your computer of choice. magpi.cc/duckycase   |  Free

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Connecting the Tufty 2040 to a computer via USB enables you to program it in MicroPython or C++. The PicoGraphics library makes it relatively easy to write text and draw shapes. JPEGs can also be rendered, and sprites imported from a sprite sheet.

Wear it well

For portable use, a JST-PH battery connector accepts input from 3 V to 5.5 V. An optional Accessory Kit includes a 3×AAA battery pack, Velcro pad to fix it to the rear, and lanyard. A less bulky alternative is to use a LiPo battery, although the Tufty has no circuitry to charge it. Naturally, power drain is higher than using an e-ink display: around 100 mA in total. The on-board light sensor could be used to auto-dim the display via PWM, however.

A neat bonus feature is the Qwiic/STEMMA QT port which can be used to connect I2C sensors and other add-ons. So you could even use the Tufty 2040 as a data display instead of a badge.

Verdict

9/10

The crisp colour screen makes for a super-cool interactive name badge that is versatile and fairly easy to program.

Specs

Display: 2.4 in colour IPS LCD display, 320×240 pixels

Power: JST-PH battery connector (input range 3–5.5 V), USB-C

Features: 5 × user buttons, LED, Qwiic/STEMMA QT port, breakout edge connector (I2C, UART, SWD), 8MB flash storage

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Chasing Your Tail creator Matt notes that there are plenty of options if you want to track someone’s movements or digital activities, but few ways to identify whether it’s happening and pinpoint who’s behind it. “It’s very depressing to see how many devices are out there to spy on people, versus how many devices detecting that people are being spied on.”

Makers gonna make

Matt works for the US government with a focus on open-source intelligence, and recently gave a talk on his anti-stalking device at the Black Hat security conference. He’s not your typical security expert, though. Matt first became interested in technology aged 10 when, a year before she died, his mum bought him a TRS-80 computer as a Christmas present and he began to learn BASIC.

Computing remained a hobby when he began a career in law enforcement, but his self-taught skills came to the fore as he began reading up on how to fix and connect various office devices and equipment, “building things that needed to be built,” eventually leading to Matt being recruited as a technical agent in a government department. He credits not having a formal computing education as one of the reasons he has no fear of computers, since he’s never been aware of what boundaries there are supposed to be. Nonetheless, Matt eventually learned MySQL databases, PHP, and GIS mapping, developing a strong interest in digital forensics. A decade ago, this led to him developing and teaching an OSINT (open-source intelligence) class, including a sandbox activity simulating possible security breach risk scenarios. At this point “a light switch flipped on about the need for far more situational awareness,” he explains.

A second set of eyes

Having spent 21 years working in digital forensics for the US government, Matt is keenly aware of the dangers that covert operations bring to both handlers and those being protected. Even the most security-conscious person carries a smartphone, however, and these can easily betray someone’s location by dint of the way they’re designed to constantly look for available connections.

The challenge is not trying to give away your own location, he warns. “If I was trying to work out if someone was following me, I would go to three different places: I’d go grab a coffee, then maybe put gas in my car, then maybe go to a bookstore, and then I would look at and see, did I see any devices at all three locations?”

Years later, an attendee at that OSINT class from a different agency contacted him with concerns. “He wasn’t worried about his physical safety; he was worried about the physical safety of this person he was talking to, and meeting with,” and wanted a second set of eyes. The man was after a physical detection device to use alongside the tradecraft and surveillance detection tools he already had.

Given his history of making things, Matt already had the hardware he needed, including a pair of Raspberry Pi 3 computers, barring a cheap $25 display he bought online. “I can write ugly Python code that gets the job done usually.” A month later, Matt handed over the suitcase containing the promised anti-stalker device.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Newcomers welcome

As the hardware encompasses just a Pico, a 320×240 touchscreen display, and five mechanical switches, Grgo sees this as a very achievable make. All that’s required is connecting several Pico pins to the display and mechanical switches. “No resistors, no capacitors, no battery, no external power supplies… I would call this beginner-level,” he confirms. While he designed a custom PCB to streamline his mini console, he says this is optional.

On the software side, he’s created a simple engine to handle the key and touch inputs, update the game state, and draw to the frame buffer in a loop. “Each game shares one 320×240 frame buffer for drawing and one 64×64 texture buffer. There is also a 16kB space used for game state memory,” he explains.

So far, he has created 14 games for the device, including his versions of Snake, Pong, and of course, Lights Out, and took a flexible approach to game development. “The end design became much more than that one single game, as I really took an agile approach while building it.”

He wrote most of the open-source code himself while modifying a few parts from other projects – in particular for handling communication with the display. “I also adapted the ray casting algorithm [for] my Labyrinth game.” He emphasises that, from a coding perspective, he’s not using any advanced capabilities of Pico here.

Apart from finding the time, as a new parent, to spend on his project, Grgo found that the most difficult element was choosing the right display and constantly rewiring the breadboard to adapt to the new pinouts. “It took me several months to find the right display… PCB design is also something I never did before, so I had to learn it from scratch.”

Take a look at his useful YouTube video, which shows him putting the device together.

Favourable feedback

The response received around the Pico Pocket Gamer has been super-positive, and Grgo’s been bowled over by the reaction by some members of the Reddit community. “Some people already DM‑ed to ask me how they can replicate the project. It brings me joy to think that I might have ignited a spark in someone to give their Pico, and some new project they have in mind, a try.”

As for future projects, Grgo doesn’t have any concrete plans yet, but confirms, “it will have something to do with the Pico W, that’s for sure.” One thing he would really like to do is to implement some of the algorithms from Michael Abrash’s Graphics Programming Black Book, and make a simple 3D game using them. He plans on adding more games to this console, and has been buoyed along by the momentum of creating each game: “With every game finished, there was this drive to build just one more.” And surely that’s a sentiment that many makers can empathise with.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

When I wasn’t reading books or playing adventure games, I was learning BASIC and making my own creations. Computing classes covered everything from acid-etched circuits to PASCAL programming.

As I worked my way through school, the computer became less about exploring the potential of a wonderful new gizmo and more about fitting students into the mould of office life. By the time I went to college, I was being taught touch-typing and how to format word-processing documents.

My love of narrative was filled with English and art, and computing became a personal hobby and less of an academic study. This is a shame because computers are incredible things. Packed with unlocked potential that can be used in all kinds of scientific and creative endeavours. Without computers, we wouldn’t have modern art in its current form; or video, film, or modern music. Still, I managed to bring it all together by editing a magazine about computers and taking courses at MITx.

It’s no surprise to me that some of the most creative people I’ve ever met are quite nerdy; and vice versa. The secretarial training was the opposite of both: learning by rote with no understanding. It was bland. In retrospect, I should have taken the electronic typewriter apart to see what was going on inside.

I like to think that Raspberry Pi and the new Pico microcontrollers can fill the tech void that is teaching, otherwise smart kids, basic office skills to tick government check boxes. Simply putting bare tech in front of kids who are interested can make all the difference.

Our retro gaming with Pico feature obviously appeals to retro geeks like me who remember the 8-bit days with love and affection. I learnt coding and computing by experimentation. Retro computing on a modern device, like Pico, also shows how cutting-edge technology can trace a path back to earlier days and help us gain an understanding of computing development.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

This is the fourth LEGO submarine design he has completed. The first three variously used propellers to add or reduce buoyancy (“gravity and buoyancy stay always the same while the propellers exert force”); a balloon, and an air compressor to adjust the amount of water displaced, thereby controlling whether the submarine sinks or rises; and a piston ballast to suck in more water to add weight and increase the sub’s gravity.

He settled on the last method for Submarine 4.0, despite the difficulty of gauging the neutral buoyancy point. However, it had proved a more stable setup and would not compress under pressure when submerged. Most importantly, “you can measure the piston position with a LEGO EV3 motor that contains a tachometer. That will help the control loop.” This loop is also the reason for using Raspberry Pi: as we reported last issue, he had recently made an impressive inverted pendulum that uses a PID (proportional integral derivative) control loop running on Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W to accurately measure and compensate for constantly changing speed, location, and pressure levels.

He planned a similar setup here, to monitor and control the submarine’s depth. He soon found the wireless LAN connectivity invaluable when tweaking the PID parameters and updating any Python code without having to physically connect to the Pi Zero 2 W via USB (which would have involved carefully extracting everything from the precision environment he’d created). He now says wireless LAN is “an absolute necessity” which “made the development process a lot faster.”

Underwater flying machine

A fair amount of time and effort went into creating the submarine’s beautiful transparent acrylic case with tightly fitting and invisible end caps. The basic acrylic cylinders were precision-cut and end pieces with rubber seals attached to form a waterproof unit. LEGO gears were fitted to control the syringe that would adjust the buoyancy.

An absolute pressure sensor (which measures pressure relative to a vacuum, and is unaffected by the ambient pressure) is used to track the submarine’s depth. It connects to Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W via I2C. A SparkFun TFMini-S Micro laser sensor provides a second means of measuring the submarine’s depth, but its accuracy is affected by the murky environments in which he was using it.

A more successful purchase was the radio board he harvested from a cheap Chinese toy submarine, having chosen it for its 27MHz radio frequency (needed to penetrate water) and its aesthetically pleasing controller. Raspberry Pi provides enough juice to power the board, so he decided to discard its LiPo battery in favour of a LEGO waterproof rechargeable battery pack.

Diving for pearls

In Submarines 2.0 and 3.0, he used lead pellets to provide extra weight, but they were quite sizable and took up valuable space inside the submarine’s frame. For this version, he splashed out on expensive 2.5 mm tungsten pellets weighing 18 g/cm3. Weighed on a kitchen scale, the submarine was 826 g, with a displacement of 1614 g. He added 580 g of tungsten pellets to make the submarine dive gently, making adjustments using the syringe.

To prevent entanglements while on manoeuvres, he attached a magnet on the inside top of the submarine frame so he could ‘fish’ the craft out of danger, if needs be. With lots of weeds and obstructions on the river bed, he was keen to avoid collisions, especially as it cost more than 600 EUR.

Thankfully, Submarine 4.0 has performed well in a range of environments from swimming pools and water tanks to a nearby river. “It drives well under water. The automatic depth control really makes controlling it easy, as you can focus on pressing only forward/backward and left/right buttons and forget the dive/surface buttons. I’d say the controls are as good as in Submarine 2.0, which has been the best so far,” he reports.

Nonetheless, as a perfectionist, he notes several areas for improvement.